Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian Greens absolutely share Labor's desire to have a reasonable inquiry into this piece of legislation. We would be very comfortable about and supportive of a committee inquiry that would report on the date of 9 May. It is worth pointing out here that the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights—I will correct Senator Watt—is not made up of members of both parties; it is actually made up of members from all parties. In the past it has also contained Independent members from the other place. But I just remind everyone that that committee did not recommend the Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2017. It did not recommend this bill. That was a process—let us name it—that was initiated by the Attorney-General, on instructions from his Prime Minister, to appease the far right of the Liberal Party, which has been running rings around the Prime Minister on a range of issues ever since and in fact before he assumed the prime ministership. Those issues include but are not limited to issues like marriage equality, for example, and now we see it on these proposed reforms to the Racial Discrimination Act, which—let us face it—are designed to make it easier to be a racist in this country. That is exactly what these reforms are designed to do.