MOTIONS
Senator HANSON-YOUNG (South Australia) (12:41): I seek leave to move a motion relating to the referral of a bill to a committee, as circulated. Leave not granted. Senator HANSON-YOUNG: At the request of the Leader of the Australian Greens in the Senate, Senator Waters, and pursuant to contingent notice, I move: That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent Senator Waters moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to give precedence to a motion proposing a reference to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee.
We are seeking to suspend standing orders today to bring forward a motion to ensure that in this place, here in the Senate, we can get to do our job properly. There's a piece of legislation that's about to be tabled in the House of Representatives that no-one has really seen—no-one has looked at the detail—and it has not been through a proper process, yet the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Peter Dutton, want to have it rammed through this place in under two days.
Why do they want to ram this piece of legislation through this chamber by the end of tomorrow? Because they are doing this under the cover of the federal budget, because it is a bill that guts environmental protection. It's a bill that will condemn wildlife in our country to extinction.
It is a bill that will give loopholes to corporations to continue to pollute and trash our natural environment, no questions asked. It is a bill that fundamentally undermines any promises that this government has made to protect Australia's environment in this term of the parliament. It shows that this Labor government cannot be trusted to do the right thing when it comes to caring for and looking after our environment.
It shows that every time the Labor Party is under pressure from the big, foreign corporations who want to continue to trash, pollute and destroy, they go weak. They go weak because they don't have the guts to stand up to them and to stand up for the protection of our natural environment. How are they getting this done?
They are entering into a stinking, rotten deal with Peter Dutton. The Liberal Party and the Labor Party are cuddling up together to do the bidding of the big, stinking, rotten corporations. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator O'Sullivan ): Senator Hanson-Young, can I remind you to use proper titles.
Senator HANSON-YOUNG: Mr Dutton and Mr Albanese, the leaders of the Labor and Liberal parties, are showing they've got more care for the stinking, rotten salmon industry in this country than they do for our wildlife or for our environment. The reason this bill needs to go to a Senate inquiry is that it is written in such a broad way. The Prime Minister will want you to believe that it is only about the rotten salmon washing up on the shores and beaches in Tasmania.
He'll want to tell the people on the mainland in Australia, 'It's okay; Tasmanians can deal with the rotten salmon but we will look after you on the mainland.' But this bill has such broad, sweeping powers that it undermines environmental protection across the board. This will allow a carve-out and a loophole not just for the rotten salmon industry but also for the fossil fuel industry, for the logging industry, for the big polluters, for the small polluters and for the environmental wreckers.
This bill guts environmental protection in the name of profits for the big corporations, in the name of the stinking, rotten politics that dominates the thinking of the Labor Party and the Liberal Party. On the eve of the election, under the cover of the federal budget, the Labor Party and Mr Dutton are working together in a stinking, rotten deal to cut environmental protection, to ram through legislation in the middle of the night while no-one is watching.
The Senate hasn't even had the opportunity to do its job. We oppose this piece of legislation because it's rotten, it stinks. The Senate should be able to do its job, because the ramifications of this bill for the environment, for other wildlife species, for other parts of nature, for the community and for industry are virtually unknown.
This bill was put together in a hasty way so that the Prime Minister had something to sell on his next trip down to Tasmania. This is all about rank, stinking, rotten politics. It is not about policy, it is not about giving the community a voice and it certainly isn't about doing the right thing by the environment.
The Prime Minister wants us to chew down on the rotten salmon, and we won't have it.