David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) | Hansard source

I withdraw that word starting with 'b'. There's not a Labor member on the speaking list, and the only coalition member is one of them who has the actual guts to come up and say no. But the coalition machine is voting for this, and none of them are willing to even put their name to it and come and explain to the public why they're doing this. You can't explain; if you were to tell the truth, you'd say, 'We're craven, craven to the security state, and we'll do whatever the security state wants'. You've done it every time.

The Prime Minister, the great shrinking man of Australian politics who, in 2003, when this legislation first came here, said, 'Never do that', said:

This legislation is without precedent—

I'm quoting him here; it's on his website, even—

in Australia's post Second World War legal history. Its provisions potentially allow for the mistreatment of ethnic minorities, the suppression of dissent and the detaining and investigation of wholly innocent Australians.

That's why he voted against it in 2003. Those were his words. Then he went on and he said:

An ideological struggle in favour of democracy and freedom cannot be won by giving up democratic values, freedom and respect for civil liberties. This is not a new struggle. Way back in 1800, British parliamentarian Edmund Burke told parliament: 'Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny'. That statement is as true today as it was when such a far-sighted legislator first uttered it.

Those were the words of the current Prime Minister, a person who has shrunk in office to a degree that he's hard to recognise. The same bloke who said that in 2003—that these laws are a threat to our civil liberties and that they are the worst of tyranny—is now leading a government that wants to supersize them. And no-one from Labor has the guts to explain how that happened; none of them.

Of course, their poodles in the coalition trot along behind them and say: 'Security state? No worries! We'll give it to you.' What's the point of you? Well, the point of you, it turns out, is to take freedoms from Australians, to take liberty from this country, to supersize the security state and to do it in the dark and under a guillotine. You haven't got the guts to actually have a committee discussion about this or to be interrogated in the parliament about your powers. You're happy to interrogate the people of Australia in secret and in the dark, but you won't even stand up in this place and answer questions in committee. That's what the guillotine does. What a disgraceful bunch of hypocrites you all are.

We will oppose this law today, like we opposed these supersized security laws in 2003, like we oppose them every time you tried to extend the sunset clause, because the Greens fundamentally believe that the people in this country deserve rights to protect them against their government. Not only do we say it; we vote that way, we vote on principle, we vote on our policies and we're going to do that today. I move:

Omit all words after "That", substitute "the Senate rejects the bill and is of the opinion that the compulsory questioning warrant scheme is a draconian and unjustified departure from the rule of law that should be repealed".

And I also seek leave to withdraw amendment (1) on sheet 3796.

Leave granted.