Senate debates

Thursday, 1 December 2022

Bills

Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Banning Dirty Donations) Bill 2022; Second Reading

9:14 am

Photo of Jenny McAllisterJenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Hansard source

Democracy is precious. It's one of the most important features of our obligations here in the Senate to think carefully about the work that we do here and the way that it protects and bolsters our really proud legacy as a multicultural, democratic nation with a universal franchise, and we should always be thinking carefully about the way that our system supports and recognises that. One of the puzzling things about being a participant in debates in this chamber over the last few years is the consistent approach that the Greens political party takes to democratic institutions, because almost every occasion that sees the Senate debate these questions sees members of the Greens political party come into this chamber and talk endlessly about how democracy is broken. Strangely, for a party that I think would see democracy as a core part of their tenets, the Greens political party choose always to assert that democracy doesn't work, and I would invite Greens senators to carefully reflect on the consequences on that narrative.

One of the interesting things I observe, from sitting in this part of the chamber as a member of a party of government and sitting on that side of the chamber as a member of a major political party that seeks to form government and enact change through the institution of government, is very close relationships between the rhetorical positioning of members who sit on this side of the crossbench and members who sit on that side of the crossbench, because what the Greens political party and One Nation have in common is a determination to tell their voters and their supporters that democracy doesn't work. That's the basis of their pitch to voters. It's important we talk about our democratic institutions. We'll always welcome that conversation, and I do thank the Greens for putting it on the agenda today. But I invite you as a political party to think about the consequences of that contribution and to reflect on the similarities between your own approach and the rhetorical approach taken by some of the people that I know you do not agree with.

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