Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

We can see from Senator Faruqi's constant interjections that, as I say, she's more interested in political attacks than in actually working together. The approach the Greens have taken today by distributing this motion minutes before we began to sit, without giving anyone an opportunity to look at it and without seeking to work together, stands in contrast to the approach that the government has repeatedly taken on issues of social cohesion. We have repeatedly worked with other parties, including the Greens political party, to develop motions that the entire chamber can agree to. That is not the approach of the Greens political party, who are always more interested in political attacks than in social cohesion.

What we need to do in this country is find ways to work together to stamp out Islamophobia and to stamp out every other form of racism that unfortunately Australians experience. For those reasons, the government will be opposing this motion. If the Greens political party want, in the future, to seek to work with us rather than dump a motion on us before we begin, we'd be happy to discuss it with them. On that basis, I move:

That the question be now put.