Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to pay tribute to and to thank my colleague and friend Senator Scott Ludlam. I do this not simply because I want people to vote for Scott in the historic Senate by-election that will decide the make-up of this chamber from July—although that is partly true. I do it because Senator Ludlum is a person of extraordinary humility, grace and integrity, and they are rare qualities in this place. I do it to thank him for the enormous contribution he has made to the Australian community across so many issues. And I do it to thank him for that wonderful speech—a speech now viewed by almost one million Australians.

Scott, I want to say thanks for showing me that there is room for more than simple slogans and sound bites in our political debate and that a well-crafted and insightful speech can have a profound impact—even when delivered to a near-empty room. I have lost count of the number of speeches I have given in this place late at night, wondering if anyone is listening. It seems that they are. Thanks for reminding me that people are desperate to hear a different perspective, one that does not fit the Murdoch world view—or what our old boss used to call 'the hate media'. Thanks for reminding me that there is room for a speech that is not so dumbed down that you cannot work out if you are watching the TV news or some infomercial.

It is pretty easy in this job to become jaded and cynical and to wonder whether the time you spend away from your wife and kids is worth it and whether you are fighting a lone battle or a lost cause. Then, in a moment of clarity—like in the speech delivered by Scott—comes a reminder that you are not alone and that hundreds of thousands of people are right there with you. It is indeed a privilege to be able to give voice to their hopes, but with that privilege comes an obligation—an obligation to name things just as they are. In that spirit there are several things that I too want to say to our new Prime Minister, Mr Abbott.

Mr Abbott, if you were really worried about people drowning at sea, you would not label asylum seekers as 'illegal' when you know that is a lie. You would not compare them with 'sewerage', as Barnaby Joyce once did, and you would not blame them when they are assaulted or killed, as the immigration minister has done. Mr Abbott, we dropped bombs on these people. We invaded their countries because we believed that the regimes were so brutal, so cruel and so heartless that it was worth spilling Australian blood to be rid of them. It is for precisely the same reason that these people are seeking our protection—yet we lock them up, we torture them and now, it seems, we even kill them.

Mr Abbott, stopping the boats is easy. If we can compete with the asylum seekers' persecutors back home for brutality and inhumanity, they will not come here. But that is not a competition I want to enter into, because success means inflicting horrendous trauma and psychological damage on innocent kids. It means denying a young woman access to medical care. It means denying people any hope so that they feel their only option is to take their own lives.

Mr Abbott, just because people do not die in Australian waters does not mean they are safe. Those dangerous boat journeys are a deliberate decision taken by desperate people, and removing the option of a boat leaves them where they started—in a dangerous and hopeless situation. A person who decides not to come to Australia and who is killed by the Taliban or who dies making a dangerous boat journey elsewhere is just as dead as if they had died in our waters. Sure, there might be fewer asylum seekers reaching Australia, but, Mr Abbott, you are just outsourcing the misery.

Of course, credit where it is due: Mr Abbott, you did an outstanding job as opposition leader. Of course, you were helped by a divided government, But, I have to hand it to you, you ran one hell of a scare campaign on climate change. You should know, though, that this is a short-lived victory and you are about to be undone. In the coming years, Mother Nature will run the scare campaign of the century and no three-word slogan will match it. You probably feel pretty smug right now. The climate deniers are in the ascendancy. The tinfoil hat brigade are emboldened because you have put them in charge. And the environment is under attack from all sides. You are about to tear down the renewable energy target. You will keep trashing the Great Barrier Reef. And you are revving the chainsaws to cut down what is left of our ancient forests. It must feel pretty good. You have done the sums and there are quite a few votes in greenie bashing. But, Mr Abbott, being an opposition leader is very different from governing the country. Just a few short months into your term you are showing yourself to be all opposition and no leader.

Just know that there are growing numbers of people around the country who are becoming angry: the people of Morwell, who have been suffocating in a blanket of toxic smoke—they have had enough; the tourism operators and fishermen who rely on a healthy Great Barrier Reef—they have had enough; the farmers whose land and water is being ruined by coal seam gas—they have had enough; the tradies who rely on the renewable energy target so that they can install solar panels on people's roofs—they have had enough; and the millions of people who love our precious forests—they have had enough too. You see, Mr Abbott, people right around the country understand that we are part of nature; we are not separate from it. They know that when we lose an animal like the Leadbeater's possum, the hairy-nosed wombat or the spotted quoll we lose a part of us.

It is not just your attacks on the environment, though, that are making people angry. When I hear you say that you are Medicare's best friend or that you are a feminist or that loggers are conservationists, I am reminded of George Orwell's 1984and the party slogan: 'War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength'. Mr Abbott, you might think that a two-tiered American style health system is a good idea. We do not. You might think that the ABC and SBS are a hotbed of leftist activism and need to be gutted. We do not. You might think that we should change the law because calling someone a 'wog', a 'chink' or a 'boong' is an expression of freedom of speech. We do not.

It takes the unique privilege of a middle-class white man like Senator Brandis to not understand how words like that can cut deep and how they can scar. I should not be surprised, because one look at your cabinet reveals an uninspiring bunch of middle-class, middle-aged and middle-of-the-road road white men. And you know that a former Prime Minister once called the Senate 'unrepresentative swill' but, with one woman in your cabinet, I reckon that is a label better applied to your cabinet. Mr Abbott, let me finish by saying that tearing things down is easy. Wrecking things is easy. Building a nation is hard; it takes work—but that is what leaders do.

So, Scott, we are engaged in a battle for the soul of our nation right now and, like you, I am not going to hand it over to a Prime Minister or a government that believes in a dog-eat-dog world—a world where it is everyone for themselves, where, if you are lucky enough to be born into privilege and wealth, you deserve more of it and, if you are not born into that world, well, tough luck. That is not my Australia. You are right to say that in time this government will be nothing but a flea-bitten footnote in the great story that is our nation's history. I hope that in your words that 'greasy layer in the core sample of future political scientists'—that is, the Abbott government—will sit beneath a much bigger, bright green layer that represents a different kind of politics, one based on decency and one based on care and compassion. Scott, you are the epitome of all those things. You have got an election to win. Good luck, mate. Let's take our country back.