Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) | Hansard source

Well, there's a bit of a Friday feeling about this debate on the Criminal Code Amendment (Agricultural Protection) Bill 2019, I would have to observe. There's a certain—what shall I say?—level of comedy about this whole piece. We've had some really fantastic contributions, and I would encourage members from the National Party, the Liberal Party and the Labor Party to go on the stand-up circuit after some of these contributions. I mean, you won't last long. They were pretty bad, but you did try to make us laugh and make us smile. I do appreciate this. If you drill down to the substance of this bill, again, you find a certain element of comedy. These are laws to further criminalise acts which are already criminal. These laws are so wholly unnecessary as to be described thus by the Law Council of Australia—this was my favourite bit:

… the case has yet to be made that these new offences are necessary and … further justification is required from the Australian Government.

… … …

There is no evidence that the existing laws are incapable of addressing the concerns that motivate the passage of the Bill …

No evidence! That's pretty clear. I know lawyers; they're not often up for speaking plainly, but that's pretty plain, although not surprising, because the absence of evidence has never stopped the National Party putting a proposal forward, and I doubt it ever will.

It's a really great time we find ourselves in! One side of this house is the dog that caught the car and never expected to, the other side of the chamber is the dog that was then reversed over by the car, and in the middle of it all we just have this vacuum that's getting filled with legislative nonsense. I mean, this is a thought-bubble that occurred to the National Party in the run-up to the election. They know it's not serious. They know it's not an actual problem that they're addressing. They know they're speaking primarily to the gut based 'feelpinions' of a couple of rural commentators and a couple of folks on 2GB, who I'm sure slipped them the lines about vegan terrorists and smelly greenies, which I thought was a terrible attack upon my colleague, Senator McKim! Why you would single him out in that way, I have no idea. This stuff really is a joke, but so much of what comes forth from this government is a joke, although it's tempered by the verbal anaesthetic that comes in every time certain members of the Liberal Party stand up here and give those terribly preprepared speeches that just make you want to vomit, go home and do something far more interesting.

I think there is a serious point to be made here, though, and it's that we do have serious issues in our agricultural industry. There is no doubt that farmers across the country are facing profound challenges when it comes to their ability and right to protect their property and do their work. However, as Senator Faruqi rightly observed in her contribution to this debate, the challenges that farmers face are not from so-called vegan terrorists, they are far more often from folks engaging in illegal hunting and shooting activity upon their property.

I have been here about two years now—it sometimes feels like a lifetime—and it's very interesting to watch that yellow section of the chamber and what really fires them up. I remember the contributions made by Senator McKenzie in relation to fake meat. That really got the goat going. It's really fascinating that on this issue the National Party are full of a soul-deep conviction to defend the right, as they see it, of farmers to do what they like on their agricultural land, to have their rights respected and to have their ability to make a livelihood out of their land respected. Yet when the antagonist is switched from the so-called strong-smelling vegan ecoterrorist to the clean-cut advocate of the coal seam gas and fracturing industry then suddenly silence descends or, if not silence, passion!

Passion for the right of corporate Australia to come onto the land of farmers in New South Wales, of farmers in Queensland, of farmers in the mid-west and in the Kimberley—