Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) | Hansard source

Exactly. It's an absolutely ridiculous suggestion, isn't it? I couldn't agree more, Senator Duniam, that it's a ridiculous suggestion. Nevertheless, the point remains—when you take away rights and freedoms, you fundamentally transform our country. You've continually failed to make the case, and the only reason that you've been able to do this, which you've done on multiple occasions since the LNP came to power in 2013, is because the Labor Party has acquiesced every step of the way. I heard Mr Dreyfus from the other place this morning expressing concerns about a particular piece of 2015 legislation. Well, Mr Dreyfus, you voted for it. All the Labor members in here voted for it. The Australian Greens didn't vote for it. It's a bit late, four years down the track, to start going, 'Maybe we shouldn't have voted for it.' The one thing that would be fantastic in this space would be if whichever of the major parties happened to be in opposition at any one time ended the spirit of bipartisanship on national security. That would be, of itself, a major step forward—so that legislation would be actually considered on its merits.

Honourable senators interjecting—

I want to point out for the record that there's lots of laughter and chat going backwards and forwards between the Liberal-National Party and the Australian Labor Party at the moment, proving my very point that this is collusion between the major parties, based on the political cowardice of whoever happens to be in opposition at the time. For the last six years and for the next two, that is the Australian Labor Party.

We won't be supporting this bill. We want to see a charter of rights in Australia and, in the last term, we could not even get support from either of the major parties for an inquiry into what form of charter of rights Australia should have. That's how far away we are in this country from any enshrined protection of rights and freedoms at a national level. The lack of a charter of rights and the complicit bipartisanship on national security, taken together, mean that today we will take another small step down the road to a totalitarian police state in Australia.