Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The urgency, Madam Deputy President, with the absolute greatest of respect to you and your position; Senator Wong and hers; and anyone else in this chamber, is simply that the debate that we are seeking to bring on relates to critical and urgent issues in the Australian public conversation and the point that whenever Labor adopts a small-target strategy the Liberals take the win and move the goalposts further to the Right. That is the urgency of this matter. That is why it should be debated by the Senate today. The Australian people want the Australian Labor Party to stand for something and to stand up for them on these urgent issues that urgently need debating in the chamber today, which is why we should suspend the standing orders to bring on this debate. The only hope for people who want to address spiralling economic inequality in this place is to vote Green, because that is the only language that the Australian Labor Party understands. We in the Australian Greens will fight economic inequality in this country, and we invite the Australian Labor Party to join us and not capitulate.