Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) | Hansard source

We will, Senator Scarr. We will. Anzac Parade is there for all of us to honour those who have died. We don't get to cherry-pick and say: 'We'll back that person. We won't back them.' It is for all of us to honour the service and the sacrifice that the men and women of the Australian defence forces have made. Whatever your position is, their service and their sacrifice deserve respect from everyone in our community. All the other stuff that's going on at the moment—all the other debates around other issues—can be done in an appropriate, mature and adult manner in this place but not when we have things like Senator Lambie's motion before the chamber today, which deserves respect and mature discussion. But, again, are we surprised by the Australian Greens?

It's an absolute kick in the guts to wake up some mornings to find out that memorials have been defaced. Whether they be the Australian War Memorial here in Canberra or other memorials in my home state of Victoria, it is a real kick in the guts to wake up to that news. What is the message that those protesters are trying to send? Is it that somehow they're winning? Quite frankly I think it's the opposite. The people in the community are saying: 'Enough is enough. Stop your childish behaviour. Grow up, be adults and actually have a proper debate about the issue, rather than relying on vandalism and breaking the law, because we've had enough of that.' We've seen that some of our colleagues' offices have been vandalised, subjected to violence and firebombed.

As community leaders in this place, we have an obligation to say, 'It's okay to have a peaceful protest, but it is not okay to resort to violence.' Every senator in this place, including Senator Steele-John and every member of the Australian Greens, has that same responsibility. The responsibility that we have here as senators, as community leaders, is very powerful, and people are watching. We need to be able to set good examples, as role models in this place, for the rest of the community and say, 'It is not okay to resort to violence.'