QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (14:36): I thank the member for his question. It strikes me as passing strange that those opposite say that the legislation that is before the Senate is so terrible that they had to rule out any support for it before they'd even seen it. Now they're asking a series of questions not about things that are in the legislation but things that aren't.
Mr Tim Wilson interjecting— The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Goldstein is warned and has the MPI. Mr ALBANESE: And then they have the hide to interject, from the chief yapper over here, that we have made sure that we have spoken to other people in the Senate besides Labor senators in order to secure support.
Today, of course, we did welcome our 30th senator, Tammy Tyrrell, into the caucus, and that was a good day. What we have done and what we do is draw a very big distinction between us and other political parties. We're prepared to cooperate where people are prepared to engage, including the Greens.
We're engaged in constructive discussion over this legislation. But we have a very different political view. I've fought the Greens for the last 30 years, it must be said, in my electorate—pretty successfully, it must be said.
The SPEAKER: The Manager of Opposition Business on a point of order? Mr Tehan: It goes to relevance. The Prime Minister is taxmaxxing with the Greens, and we want to know whether— The SPEAKER: Resume your seat.
If we're going to go down that path with commentary in using points of order just to get TV grabs, we're not going to allow it. You simply get up and ask the point of order. We're not having a period with extra comments.
An opposition member interjecting— The SPEAKER: That wasn't part of the question, and the manager knows that. I will revert back to what we started to do. I won't take points of order if they're going to be abused in such an egregious way.
There just won't be points of order, and we can go through the examples of where the Speakers have done that. I don't wish to do that, but that is where this is heading if those spurious points of order continue. Mr ALBANESE: As I was saying, they asked about the Greens political party.
There's now one of them over there—one. There were four. We knocked out three of the four at the last election because we took a very different position from the Greens political party, as we consistently do.
My job isn't to give advice to this bloke, but my advice is how about you stand up to One Nation on something? How about you prepare to follow this bloke's leadership and not bend the knee when asked questions like, 'Do you support monoculturalism for Australia?' It's not a complex question because we've never been a monoculture. We have different people of different faiths, different ethnicities, different backgrounds that make up Australia—and, it must be said, have made up Australia forever.
This is a pining for a time that has never existed in this country. The First Fleet had people who were in chains and people who were in charge; it had Protestants and Catholics; it had a multicultural society, and it continues to have one. (Time expired) Mr Pasin interjecting— Dr Aly: You can't even say it!
The SPEAKER: The Minister for Small Business is warned. The member for Barker will leave the chamber under 94(a) for interjecting non-stop. The member for Barker then left the chamber.