Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

This is a good debate to be having. It is actually teases out the philosophical underpinnings of how we achieve change in our society. It says that there are some people who believe that the law is the privilege of the classes that Senator O'Sullivan seeks to represent—a politics of wealth and privilege—and is the vehicle through which we achieve change. We do not accept that. What we believe here, within the Greens, is that we have an obligation from not just within the parliament but also from outside it to lead those social movements, to ensure that those social movements have the opportunity to be heard, and that we achieve a better society by standing up to unjust laws. Our party is founded on the notion of peaceful protest, and we celebrate it. We embrace it. We understand that if we are to achieve change—that is what is at the heart of any healthy democracy.