Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

SIEWERT (—) (): I rise to make a brief contribution to this debate and explain to the government why the Greens will not be granting leave to recommit this motion. I was in the chamber yesterday for the whole of motions. When this motion came up and the division bells were rung and the government senators started filing in, I was one of the ones who were—I'll admit, Mr President—being unruly, as I was yelling across the table saying: 'What are you doing? What are you doing?'

Senators who came into this chamber from the government side of things knew what they were doing and chose to sit in those seats, so much so that, when Senator O'Sullivan came in and I was yelling at him, asking him if he knew what he was doing, he said: 'I don't know and I don't care, because you're over there, which means I'm over here. That's all I need when I come in. I don't look for the whip. I look for you people.' He then got out the Notice Paper and was looking at the Notice Paper. So it's a fiction to say that the government senators did not know what they were voting for. They did know what they were voting for, or many of them who sat there did—because he still sat there. When he read the motion, did he say: 'Oh my goodness me! I'm on the wrong side. We are making a mistake'? Did he say that? No, and neither did any of the other senators.

The Greens are not going to let the government get away with the fiction that this was a mistake, because it wasn't a mistake. We can't grant them leave to recommit, because you do that when there is a mistake that has been made or someone was out of the chamber. I've been in this place many times when this has occurred, including with some of my own senators, because they missed a vote. This is not that situation. The government knew what they were doing, and they've come back in here because they've seen the backlash from the community—and you've heard very eloquent contributions about the impact that has had on the government. What we will do, however, is give the government leave to bring in a new motion—if they want to do that today—that expresses this Senate's support for a strong multicultural community in Australia. We will support and give the government leave to bring in a motion of that nature, but we are not about to contribute to the fiction that there was a mistake made.

We all make mistakes. I acknowledge that. We have. I'm sure that none of us can stand, hand on heart, and say that we don't make mistakes. But this was not a mistake. Senators on that side of the chamber knew what was going on. They could not have not known what was going on, given the ruckus, quite frankly, that this end of the chamber was making yesterday—and I freely admit that I was one of those people saying, 'What are you doing?' In fact, I was probably using stronger language than that. They knew what they were doing and they still sat on that side of the chamber. Thank goodness yesterday the majority did not support that view, but it would be good for this chamber to pass a motion that expresses its strong support for our multicultural community in this country.