Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

Senator McKim has just delivered a speech that would be very familiar to those who take an interest in national security debates in this parliament. And his interest in human rights and freedoms is admirable and, I would assert, one shared by everyone in this place. The very great difference is, though, that I have never heard—actually ever—Senator McKim engage in a serious way in a debate in this place with the material issues of national security that drive the conversation about our public policy response. From this, I have come to the conclusion that there is actually no national security problem that the Greens political party are prepared to accept is real. I have never heard any such concession in any of these remarks. Senator McKim may wish to approach his next set of remarks differently. But the consequence of that is there's never any justification that the Greens political party are prepared to accept any kind of policy response to a national security challenge.