Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

In my life prior to coming to the parliament, I operated a consultancy whose affairs were all across the world. In fact, I departed from this country on over 350 occasions to multiple international destinations. Most trips were to three, four or five countries. So I've spent an extraordinary amount of time offshore. I think my late wife calculated that I often spent up to four months a year offshore between 15 and 20 of these trips. They were right throughout Asia and to some exotic places that, I must admit, I have no ambition to return to. I went to the Middle East, Europe, North America and Canada. You can, if you like, think that perhaps I'm a bit parochial about Australia, but one thing I do know is that, particularly around the rights, the freedoms and the democratic environment that we have in this nation, I couldn't find anywhere in the world to compare to it—I simply couldn't.

I couldn't find anywhere in the world to compare to the culture of our nation, our ability to get on with each other. We are a nation that I think is a very fair-minded nation. I think we're a very generous nation in so many ways. I don't talk about the fact that we are a new nation, because we are one of the oldest nations on earth. But I think the balance that has come—including the contribution made to our culture in this nation by the original Australians, their nation, as they've allowed us to share it with them—is such that we have got the balance right between rights and freedoms. It doesn't matter where you go in the world; I'll point out for you where I think there are serious imbalances around the rights and the freedoms of citizens. Obviously, the challenge is that, when you give a right or you take a right away, it affects your freedom.

I'm 61 years of age, and over the last five or six years we've seen a massive acceleration of progressive ideas in this country. There are many reasons for it, and I don't intend to particularise all of them; there is social media and the use of the internet. We've seen complete libertarianism in its purest form: everybody should be able to do anything, whenever they like, without having regard to the fact that they live in a broader community where some of the views might not be shared. That in itself is a challenge for our nation as we continue to develop our culture. But a much bigger challenge are the advocates of some of these extremely left-wing progressive ideas, and I name, in this chamber, the Greens. It is the manner in which they and their followers are executing these minority ideals that they say they represent. They talk about being bullied. I'll tell you what: you need to move down to this end of the chamber if you don't feel bullied. You need to move down this end of the chamber and listen to the Greens in unison as they attack the contributions of many on the crossbench and many of us who stand up on centre-Right and generally more conservative issues. If you want to talk about the loss of freedoms that they talk about today—inhibiting free speech—you need to go back to what started this range war in this chamber. That was me moving a motion—a sensible, balanced motion representing the views of so many in my home state of Queensland, a more conservative state perhaps than anywhere in the country—and being denied formality. That was the first shot, and it's deteriorated from there at a pace that we haven't seen in this place, at least not in the five years that I've been here.

If you open your mouth—I happen to be a Roman Catholic and a proud Roman Catholic. I was educated in the Roman Catholic way, through the catechism, and it remains with me and has done for my entire life. For me to have one of these offensive individuals in the Greens call out, 'You keep your rosaries off my ovaries,' think about how offensive that statement is. That is an attack, firstly, on my Christianity, on my Roman Catholic religious status, and it's an attack on my right—and I get the old, 'You're an old, fat white man; you can't talk on this.' Well, I'm not talking about women's rights; I'm talking about the rights of an infant who is in some instances only minutes or hours off being born, being given life. That's who my voice is for. I said it here very early in my Senate career: I am here to give a voice to those who don't have a strong voice for themselves. You can find my motions offensive, you can find my contributions as I debate your motions to be offensive, but you cannot deny me the right to express myself. As to the methodology and the bullying that comes out against those of us who want to take a steadier hand as we make changes in the culture of this nature, we are entitled to express ourselves, and we do it in a very measured way, a sensible way and a way reflective of our constituents.

You know the episode last week, when I said, 'I'll declare myself to be a woman and then you won't be able to attack me anymore.' I promise you that I found every freak in the Southern Hemisphere, who wrote the vilest of remarks that you could ever imagine—starting, of course, with one of my colleagues from the Greens, who called me about six or seven names that ended in 'ism'. I must admit I didn't recognise three or four of them. I probably need to do some research and might have to fess up to one or two. The fact of the matter is that I exercised my right of free speech.

We have the right in this chamber—in this 'cathedral of democracy', as some references are made—and, in fact, the responsibility to put issues forward, debate them sensibly and then tie ourselves to the result. That's why this attack on freedom of speech occurs. That's why there is this bullying of us. They don't want the world to see how they might vote on something that they find offensive—the fact that we might want to preserve the life of unborn children. They don't want to be called to account. They don't want to see which side of the chamber they end up on. That's how this all started. That's how the first shot was fired here—and the deterioration hasn't ended yet.

I don't speak for anybody else, but you will not silence me; you will not mute me. I will take all of my rights to speak, to present ideas to this place and to put motions to this floor, and I'll do what it takes to try to bring you to put your feet on the sticky paper about whether you are yea or nay in relation to issues that are significantly important to so many people in this nation and most certainly to the constituency that I represent in my home state of Queensland.

The bullying, the intimidation, the calling of names and the interjections that come from some in this chamber won't work. They haven't worked. They didn't work today, they won't work tomorrow, and they won't work next week. I've made a contribution to where we are. I said to my colleagues the other morning, 'We're down in the mudflats now; we're just all tadpoles at the moment.' I've contributed to that and I haven't finished with it yet. I will bring it to its knees until it fails to function in the form that it has been functioning.

Senator Pratt interjecting—

No, Senator; your people started this. You fired the first shot on abortion. You should take to your feet and you could tidy that up.