Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move a motion to censure Senator Hanson for misleading the Senate by stating that she will not financially benefit from the government's proposed income tax cuts.

Leave not granted.

Pursuant to contingent notice, I move:

That so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent Senator Hanson-Young moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter—namely, a motion to censure Senator Hanson for misleading the Senate by stating that she will not financially benefit from the government's proposed income tax cuts.

We saw Senator Hanson yesterday come into this place and try and tell this place and the Australian people that she would not be getting a dollar from the tax cut bill that is passing through this place and the other place today. Senator Hanson misled the Australian parliament and she misled the Australian people, because we know that what this tax cut bill does is give her and every other person in this place a massive tax cut—upwards of $11,000 worth of tax cuts. Senator Hanson, who prides herself on being 'the voice of the battler' and 'the people's Pauline', misled the Australian people and she misled this Senate. She said that she would not financially benefit when, of course, she will, and she will benefit more than most other Australians. The majority of Australians get very little out of this tax cut, but Senator Pauline Hanson, the leader of One Nation, gets a whopping $11,815 worth of tax cuts. Yet she came into this place and denied it. She denied that she gets any personal benefit from this.

It's important for everybody to understand that politicians get a huge tax cut out of this bill—all of us do—but for Senator Hanson to pretend that she doesn't is what is fundamentally problematic. At a time when politicians are on the nose, when we know that the Australian people expect better from our politicians, the last thing we should be doing in this place is letting Senator Pauline Hanson off the hook.