Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a brief statement in relation to the government's position on motion No. 1092.

Leave granted.

When the Senate voted on motion No. 1092 in the name of Senator Hanson yesterday, the government should have voted to oppose that motion. Indeed, when this motion was first lodged in September and we considered our position on it then, we made a clear decision to oppose it to make a statement in our own words that, as a government, we deplore racism of any kind. We did not make a decision to actually support the motion as circulated. While the motion was not dealt with on 20 September 2018, that is the position that should have been maintained when it was ultimately moved yesterday. As a result of an administrative process failure, that did not happen. As leader of our team in the Senate, I take responsibility for that and apologise to the Senate.