Senate debates

Tuesday, 23 July 2019

Matters of Public Importance

Human Rights

4:20 pm

Photo of Murray WattMurray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I will come to you in a moment, Senator Waters; don't worry. I'm getting a bit tired and I think most Queenslanders are getting tired of being the tools, the pawns of the Greens on the one hand and the National Party on the other—coming down here constantly and coming into elections using coal and communities as a tool to get their own votes up rather than actually thinking about the real future of Queenslanders. We've seen it here again. I'm not going to waste too much time dealing with this culture war that is going on between the Greens and the National Party other than to say I do think that it is important that the Greens be held to account for their incredibly self-indulgent behaviour through the most recent federal election campaign.

Now, it's not often that I agree with Senator Canavan, but I will agree with him on one thing today, and that is that the only people who benefited from the Bob Brown convoy during the most recent federal election were the Greens on the one hand and the National Party on the other. It actually wasn't about the environment. It wasn't about the people of Queensland. It wasn't about jobs. It was about getting Senator Waters's bum back on the seat where she is right now. That's what it was about. It was exactly the kind of behaviour you would expect from the Greens. We have all come to understand that what the Greens are about is stunts. Bob Brown convoy stunt? Got a big tick there. They are also about self-indulgent behaviour. That's what we see from them every single day down here. Bob Brown convoy? Self-indulgent. Tick. It is incredibly insulting behaviour towards most people who live in that region.

There are genuine issues about the future of coal and they are issues that deserve reflection, deserve rational debate and deserve facts rather than this kind of overheated rhetoric that we see from both of the extremes in Australian politics as we continue to from the Greens and the National Party. We have seen it here again today with Senator Hanson-Young having a crack at Senator Canavan and Senator Canavan having a crack at the Greens. Senator Waters is up next, and I'm sure she'll be having a crack at Senator Canavan. We don't move the debate forward whatsoever. And of course they will take us out on the way through.

On the matter of the convoy, there were a lot of people—Labor supporters—that I spoke to in both central Queensland and across Queensland after the federal election who said to me: 'Jeez, wasn't that convoy a disaster? Didn't that hurt us?' And it did. It hurt Labor, but, more importantly, it hurt Central Queenslanders. A lot of these Labor supporters who raised this with me said: 'Jeez, the Greens didn't know what they were getting up to, did they? They've ended up delivering another Liberal-National Party government.' You know what? That's exactly what they wanted.

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