STATEMENTS BY SENATORS

Senator McKIM (Tasmania—Australian Greens Whip) (13:46): At the last election, one in three Australians gave their first preference vote to the coalition. One in three also happens to be the number of queer Australians who've attempted suicide in their lifetime—one in three. The coalition is prepared to risk increasing that number in pursuit of increasing their vote.

They are hunting for votes by hunting vulnerable people. They are introducing dangerously transphobic legislation which targets trans people and deliberately exposes them to harm. Spare me the claim that this is somehow about protecting women.

The threat to women is not trans people. The threat to women is One Nation giving a job to a convicted rapist. The threat to women is the Liberal and National parties trying to totally undermine education on consent.

They themselves are the very danger they claim to be warning against. These people are not to be trusted—not around our kids, not around trans kids and not around women's safety. They have a problem with the very existence of trans people, and, mark my words, they will throw as many of them under the bus as they can in a race to the bottom with One Nation.

Trans Australians are paying the price, and some of them are paying it with their very lives. But I want trans people to know this: the Greens will always have your back, and we will fight to drive these culture vulture warriors all the way back into the Dark Ages where they belong.