Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can I just say that I think these two minutes are a load of rubbish. Honestly, here we go. The major parties are squeezing the crossbench again because they know we're a threat. We're coming and we're coming hard and fast in the next election, because out there, apparently, the Australian people these days can't tell the difference between who is the opposition and who is the government.

We have no problem with embarrassing you and calling you out. If you make decisions up here, then you should be called out. If you make decisions, and those decisions are so good and you're so proud of them, what is wrong with showing you on the other side what we think on social media? What is wrong with doing that? Aren't those decisions supposed to be the best in the world? I thought you'd be out there like little marketeers, like your Prime Minister, selling yourselves like there's no tomorrow, saying, 'Look what we've been able to achieve!' But oh no, God help us if we ask for divisions these days. God forbid that you should be feeling ashamed of yourselves, which is exactly what happens, and that's why you do not want these divisions in here. It's got nothing to do—except we are calling you out and making you stand on the other side and show us and the Australian public where you stand. Show them that it's really not a democracy up in the Senate but that you're all like little puppets, the lot of you, and that what your leader says is what you do. Then you say, 'How high can I jump, mate?'

So if you want to do that, because you're not independent enough to stand on your own two feet, then at least own it. Own every little bit of it. That means that when we call a division over a motion or anything else, which we should be entitled to do, that should be shown to the rest of the country. I'm certainly not embarrassed about showing it. Yet, when we do it, you don't like it. You don't like it, because you're not all in sync, but you still do what your leader says. Welcome to democracy, Australians. This is what true democracy is—no divisions!