Division Description Changes — Business — Rearrangement — 24th Nov 2021

Change	Division
senate vote 2021-11-24#1 Edited by mackay staff on 2022-08-26 10:28:39	Title ~~Business — Rearrangement~~ Business - Rearrangement - Let a vote happen Description ~~<p class="speaker">Kristina Keneally</p>~~ ~~<p>I seek leave to move a motion relating to the consideration of general business notice of motion No. 1269 as circulated in the chamber.</p>~~ The majority voted against a [motion](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?id=2021-11-24.14.2) to suspend the usual procedural rules of parliament, which are known as [standing orders](https://peo.gov.au/understand-our-parliament/how-parliament-works/parliament-at-work/standing-orders/). ### Motion text > That so much of the [standing orders](https://peo.gov.au/understand-our-parliament/how-parliament-works/parliament-at-work/standing-orders/) be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter—namely, a motion to provide that* general business notice of motion No. 1269 be called upon immediately, take precedence over all other government business and if not considered finally by midday the question shall be put and determined without amendment.* ~~<p>Leave not granted.</p>~~ ~~<p>Pursuant to contingent notice standing in the name of Senator Wong, I move:</p>~~ <p class="italic">That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter—namely, a motion to provide that general business notice of motion No. 1269 be called upon immediately, take precedence over all other government business and if not considered finally by midday the question shall be put and determined without amendment.</p> <p>In seeking to debate this motion today, I am calling for true leadership from the Prime Minister and the government he supposedly leads. I call for everyone in this parliament, both in this place and in the other chamber, to urgently and without qualification condemn the violence that we are seeing in Australia. What we have seen at protests over the last few weeks has been shocking. It has been utterly appalling. It has been without precedent in modern times in this country. A swift rebuke of these violent threats should be easy.</p> <p>That's not what we have seen from Mr Morrison. What we've seen is a bet each way—a Prime Minister talking out of both sides of his mouth, because the Prime Minister is, at heart, just an ad man who wants nothing more than to sell a product, and that product is himself. There are few limits that Mr Morrison will place on his own ambition to keep his own job. He's pandered to violent extremists because he sees value in their vote and he relies on the support of their proxies in this parliament to hold up his government. It's not enough to clinically cloak your words in the democratic language of debate, protest, choice and truth, while those around you are playing and braying with violent threats, parading gallows through the streets, threatening murder and violence.</p> <p>Peaceful protest, considered and informed debate, and a free and fair media are all, of course, important and cherished pillars of our democracy. These are core tenets of our society and they must be protected. But, instead, they're being sold up the river by a small group in this parliament who seek to undermine them in the violence being described, encouraged and threatened that I encourage us all to condemn today, and the frenzied abuse that has been hurled at health workers and experts, reporters, elected representatives, their staff and their families.</p> <p>I move that we condemn the graphic threats of violence encouraged by the comments on social media posts by government MPs who do nothing to remove or dissuade these threats. Two days in a row, I have asked the leader of the government in this chamber what the government is doing about specific threats that are being made in response to Mr Christensen's social media posts, and, two days in a row, I have had no answer.</p> <p>This is more than negligence. This is more than irresponsible. It is actually dangerous. Anger is virulent, in person and online. And we in Australia, as a democracy, are learning in real time that disinformation, fear and anger can create a potent rage. There are those here, sadly, unfortunately, in this parliament, elected MPs, who have stoked anger and rage because they know it yields them attention and relevance and profit at the ballot box. But at what cost to our democracy? Fear and rage mixed together creates something toxic in a democracy.</p> <p>Let us remember all that is at stake here. In January, in the United States, we saw that protest can spontaneously combust and become deadly. Our parliamentary colleagues in the United Kingdom know only too well that they are made vulnerable by their public accessibility, two of their members having been murdered by extremists. Our Senate colleague Senator Lambie said that we all have freedom to make choices but not freedom for choices to be without consequences. And so what are the consequences of creating fear and fury and your followers deploying tactics of fear and intimidation?</p> <p>In our service to the people of Australia, we have a responsibility as elected representatives, and that is to make clear the boundaries of responsible debate and discourse. It is to refuse to associate with extremists who peddle falsehoods and intimidation. It is to draw back from this moment, to urge calm and to restore respect before it is too late. We need, in this moment, true leadership, not political spin. The Prime Minister, Mr Morrison, has shown none of that. He has only condemned with qualification, where he seeks to wink and nod and show sympathy to the violent protesters.</p> ~~<p>Let us be clear: in this place of democracy we must give an unequivocal condemnation and we must unite this country in order to protect it.</p>~~ ~~<p class="speaker">Mehreen Faruqi</p>~~ <p>Just yesterday I stood in this chamber in question time and asked the Leader of the Government in the Senate whether he or the Prime Minister would condemn far-Right extremism. What I got was the usual waffle, the usual sitting on the fence: 'Yes. Sure. We condemn all kinds of extremism.' That is absolute rubbish. That is bullshit. You are putting people's lives in danger. That's what you are doing. And do you know what? This is nothing new. On the weekend, we saw the far-Right extremists on the streets again. They have embedded themselves in antilockdown and antivaccination organising.</p> <p>Far-Right extremism in this country is not new. There are people of colour, especially women of colour, who have faced this abuse, these threats and this violence for a very long time—people like Senator Thorpe, Senator Cox and me, and there are others as well—yet there is such a reluctance from this government to even utter the words 'far-Right extremism'. Well, it exists, and you saw it blatantly on the streets on the weekend. But it has been blatant in social media, through people's emails, for a very long time.</p> <p>You can't even utter the word 'antiracism'. That's how terrible you are in stoking division and fear within communities. All you want out of this is to harvest votes to stay in power and keep doing the crap that you have been doing for years now. That is the truth. Right-wing politicians in this place have fuelled far-Right extremism. They have fuelled racism and have created an environment that is ripe for even further growth of the far Right by mainstreaming their dangerous ideologies and enabling far-Right groups to recruit more members.</p> <p>We know now that up to 50 per cent of ASIO's domestic counterterrorism case load relates to what you like to call 'ideologically motivated violent extremism'. You can't bring yourself to say 'far-Right extremism'. There was a big report, 'Nazis Next Door', published by the Nine newspapers just a few months ago, which alerted us to the really terrible truths about the growing threat of far-Right extremism and white supremacy. The report was shocking, but it was not entirely surprising to those of us who have followed the rise of the far Right closely and are impacted by its deadly consequences. We have seen those deadly consequences in Christchurch, where 51 innocent Muslims were brutally murdered by an Australian man, because you refuse to stand up and condemn far-Right extremism. Develop a backbone. Do the right thing and condemn far-Right extremism today.</p> ~~<p class="speaker">James Paterson</p>~~ <p>I rise to make a contribution on behalf of government senators to Senator Keneally's motion and I do so wearing a couple of different relevant hats. The first is as the chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, currently leading an inquiry into extremism and radicalism. It is an issue which I and I know all members of the PJCIS take very seriously. We have worked very closely with our intelligence, security and law enforcement agencies on what is unfortunately a growing and serious threat to the safety, freedom and security of all Australians. I look forward to—hopefully, in a bipartisan way—handing down a report that makes constructive suggestions as to how we can all tackle this threat together. But I don't think it's fair to besmirch the government's intentions or the seriousness with which it takes these issues, as Senator Keneally and others have done in this debate. The government earlier this year for the first time listed a far-right organisation, the Sonnenkrieg Division, as a terrorist organisation under our Criminal Code, as it should. When handing down that report in this chamber I called upon the government to carefully consider whether any other far-right organisations met the threshold for terrorist listing, and I look forward to further developments in that space very soon.</p> <p>The second relevant hat that I wear for this debate is as deputy chair of the Senate Select Committee on COVID-19. As we know, much of the protest, much of the anxiety, much of the heat around this debate has been related to the pandemic and the public health restrictions that have been brought in to combat the pandemic and vaccinations. In that role I have consistently supported the vaccine rollout and encouraged Australians to come forward as soon as possible to be vaccinated with the vaccine that they are eligible for. Unlike some other people in this place, who have sought to disparage certain brands of vaccines to undermine the vaccine rollout, I have consistently supported it.</p> <p>But the third and most important hat that I wear in contributing to this debate is as a senator for Victoria. As a senator for Victoria I represent Australia's and the world's most locked down city. The 250 days of hard lockdown in Melbourne have had an enormous impact on the people of Victoria and the people of Melbourne, and we should not lightly dismiss the impact that that has had on people's wellbeing, on their mental health, on the more than 200 days of schooling that young people have missed, on the employment opportunities people have missed out on, on the small businesses that have closed. In the context of that lockdown it is not surprising that there are many Victorians from all walks of life who are anxious about the Victorian state government's pandemic bill and the powers that it grants that state government. It's not surprising that more than 60 leading QCs, the law institute and other eminent bodies in Victoria have raised profound and serious concerns with that law and the impact that it would have on civil liberties. It's not surprising that many Victorians, in response to that law and the way in which the Andrews government is trying to ram it through the parliament, have taken to the streets in protest to put forward their concerns.</p> <p>Let me be very clear: it is totally and utterly unacceptable to ever threaten political violence. It is never an acceptable tactic, and I wish Senator Keneally was right when she said that it is without precedent. But, unfortunately, it is not without precedent in this country. There have been other threats of violence in the pursuit of political goals in the not too distant past. I wish that it was only in the context of the COVID pandemic and mandatory vaccination and other issues that members of parliament, senators, their staff and their families had been threatened, had been harassed, had been bullied, had been stalked. But we know that it isn't the only context in which these threats have happened.</p> <p>You only have to ask Nicolle Flint, the member for Boothby, about her experience at the last election. A man was charged with stalking her in that election, her office was vandalised, her staff were threatened and they were made to feel unsafe doing their work for a member parliament. Unfortunately, this is not without precedent. Unfortunately, when those incidents have happened in the past, they have not been condemned in an unqualified way by people in this chamber. Perhaps the most galling contribution made so far is that of Senator Faruqi, given the association of the Greens political party with Extinction Rebellion, who not only vandalised this building, set a pram on fire at the front of it and vandalised the Lodge but regularly make threats against members of parliament and their staff and make them feel unsafe.</p> ~~<p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>~~

~~Kristina Keneally~~
~~I seek leave to move a motion relating to the consideration of general business notice of motion No. 1269 as circulated in the chamber.~~
The majority voted against a [motion](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?id=2021-11-24.14.2) to suspend the usual procedural rules of parliament, which are known as [standing orders](https://peo.gov.au/understand-our-parliament/how-parliament-works/parliament-at-work/standing-orders/).
### Motion text
> *That so much of the [standing orders](https://peo.gov.au/understand-our-parliament/how-parliament-works/parliament-at-work/standing-orders/) be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter—namely, a motion to provide that general business notice of motion No. 1269 be called upon immediately, take precedence over all other government business and if not considered finally by midday the question shall be put and determined without amendment.*
~~Leave not granted.~~
~~Pursuant to contingent notice standing in the name of Senator Wong, I move:~~
That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter—namely, a motion to provide that general business notice of motion No. 1269 be called upon immediately, take precedence over all other government business and if not considered finally by midday the question shall be put and determined without amendment.
In seeking to debate this motion today, I am calling for true leadership from the Prime Minister and the government he supposedly leads. I call for everyone in this parliament, both in this place and in the other chamber, to urgently and without qualification condemn the violence that we are seeing in Australia. What we have seen at protests over the last few weeks has been shocking. It has been utterly appalling. It has been without precedent in modern times in this country. A swift rebuke of these violent threats should be easy.
That's not what we have seen from Mr Morrison. What we've seen is a bet each way—a Prime Minister talking out of both sides of his mouth, because the Prime Minister is, at heart, just an ad man who wants nothing more than to sell a product, and that product is himself. There are few limits that Mr Morrison will place on his own ambition to keep his own job. He's pandered to violent extremists because he sees value in their vote and he relies on the support of their proxies in this parliament to hold up his government. It's not enough to clinically cloak your words in the democratic language of debate, protest, choice and truth, while those around you are playing and braying with violent threats, parading gallows through the streets, threatening murder and violence.
Peaceful protest, considered and informed debate, and a free and fair media are all, of course, important and cherished pillars of our democracy. These are core tenets of our society and they must be protected. But, instead, they're being sold up the river by a small group in this parliament who seek to undermine them in the violence being described, encouraged and threatened that I encourage us all to condemn today, and the frenzied abuse that has been hurled at health workers and experts, reporters, elected representatives, their staff and their families.
I move that we condemn the graphic threats of violence encouraged by the comments on social media posts by government MPs who do nothing to remove or dissuade these threats. Two days in a row, I have asked the leader of the government in this chamber what the government is doing about specific threats that are being made in response to Mr Christensen's social media posts, and, two days in a row, I have had no answer.
This is more than negligence. This is more than irresponsible. It is actually dangerous. Anger is virulent, in person and online. And we in Australia, as a democracy, are learning in real time that disinformation, fear and anger can create a potent rage. There are those here, sadly, unfortunately, in this parliament, elected MPs, who have stoked anger and rage because they know it yields them attention and relevance and profit at the ballot box. But at what cost to our democracy? Fear and rage mixed together creates something toxic in a democracy.
Let us remember all that is at stake here. In January, in the United States, we saw that protest can spontaneously combust and become deadly. Our parliamentary colleagues in the United Kingdom know only too well that they are made vulnerable by their public accessibility, two of their members having been murdered by extremists. Our Senate colleague Senator Lambie said that we all have freedom to make choices but not freedom for choices to be without consequences. And so what are the consequences of creating fear and fury and your followers deploying tactics of fear and intimidation?
In our service to the people of Australia, we have a responsibility as elected representatives, and that is to make clear the boundaries of responsible debate and discourse. It is to refuse to associate with extremists who peddle falsehoods and intimidation. It is to draw back from this moment, to urge calm and to restore respect before it is too late. We need, in this moment, true leadership, not political spin. The Prime Minister, Mr Morrison, has shown none of that. He has only condemned with qualification, where he seeks to wink and nod and show sympathy to the violent protesters.
~~Let us be clear: in this place of democracy we must give an unequivocal condemnation and we must unite this country in order to protect it.~~
~~Mehreen Faruqi~~
Just yesterday I stood in this chamber in question time and asked the Leader of the Government in the Senate whether he or the Prime Minister would condemn far-Right extremism. What I got was the usual waffle, the usual sitting on the fence: 'Yes. Sure. We condemn all kinds of extremism.' That is absolute rubbish. That is bullshit. You are putting people's lives in danger. That's what you are doing. And do you know what? This is nothing new. On the weekend, we saw the far-Right extremists on the streets again. They have embedded themselves in antilockdown and antivaccination organising.
Far-Right extremism in this country is not new. There are people of colour, especially women of colour, who have faced this abuse, these threats and this violence for a very long time—people like Senator Thorpe, Senator Cox and me, and there are others as well—yet there is such a reluctance from this government to even utter the words 'far-Right extremism'. Well, it exists, and you saw it blatantly on the streets on the weekend. But it has been blatant in social media, through people's emails, for a very long time.
You can't even utter the word 'antiracism'. That's how terrible you are in stoking division and fear within communities. All you want out of this is to harvest votes to stay in power and keep doing the crap that you have been doing for years now. That is the truth. Right-wing politicians in this place have fuelled far-Right extremism. They have fuelled racism and have created an environment that is ripe for even further growth of the far Right by mainstreaming their dangerous ideologies and enabling far-Right groups to recruit more members.
We know now that up to 50 per cent of ASIO's domestic counterterrorism case load relates to what you like to call 'ideologically motivated violent extremism'. You can't bring yourself to say 'far-Right extremism'. There was a big report, 'Nazis Next Door', published by the Nine newspapers just a few months ago, which alerted us to the really terrible truths about the growing threat of far-Right extremism and white supremacy. The report was shocking, but it was not entirely surprising to those of us who have followed the rise of the far Right closely and are impacted by its deadly consequences. We have seen those deadly consequences in Christchurch, where 51 innocent Muslims were brutally murdered by an Australian man, because you refuse to stand up and condemn far-Right extremism. Develop a backbone. Do the right thing and condemn far-Right extremism today.
~~James Paterson~~
I rise to make a contribution on behalf of government senators to Senator Keneally's motion and I do so wearing a couple of different relevant hats. The first is as the chair of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security, currently leading an inquiry into extremism and radicalism. It is an issue which I and I know all members of the PJCIS take very seriously. We have worked very closely with our intelligence, security and law enforcement agencies on what is unfortunately a growing and serious threat to the safety, freedom and security of all Australians. I look forward to—hopefully, in a bipartisan way—handing down a report that makes constructive suggestions as to how we can all tackle this threat together. But I don't think it's fair to besmirch the government's intentions or the seriousness with which it takes these issues, as Senator Keneally and others have done in this debate. The government earlier this year for the first time listed a far-right organisation, the Sonnenkrieg Division, as a terrorist organisation under our Criminal Code, as it should. When handing down that report in this chamber I called upon the government to carefully consider whether any other far-right organisations met the threshold for terrorist listing, and I look forward to further developments in that space very soon.
The second relevant hat that I wear for this debate is as deputy chair of the Senate Select Committee on COVID-19. As we know, much of the protest, much of the anxiety, much of the heat around this debate has been related to the pandemic and the public health restrictions that have been brought in to combat the pandemic and vaccinations. In that role I have consistently supported the vaccine rollout and encouraged Australians to come forward as soon as possible to be vaccinated with the vaccine that they are eligible for. Unlike some other people in this place, who have sought to disparage certain brands of vaccines to undermine the vaccine rollout, I have consistently supported it.
But the third and most important hat that I wear in contributing to this debate is as a senator for Victoria. As a senator for Victoria I represent Australia's and the world's most locked down city. The 250 days of hard lockdown in Melbourne have had an enormous impact on the people of Victoria and the people of Melbourne, and we should not lightly dismiss the impact that that has had on people's wellbeing, on their mental health, on the more than 200 days of schooling that young people have missed, on the employment opportunities people have missed out on, on the small businesses that have closed. In the context of that lockdown it is not surprising that there are many Victorians from all walks of life who are anxious about the Victorian state government's pandemic bill and the powers that it grants that state government. It's not surprising that more than 60 leading QCs, the law institute and other eminent bodies in Victoria have raised profound and serious concerns with that law and the impact that it would have on civil liberties. It's not surprising that many Victorians, in response to that law and the way in which the Andrews government is trying to ram it through the parliament, have taken to the streets in protest to put forward their concerns.
Let me be very clear: it is totally and utterly unacceptable to ever threaten political violence. It is never an acceptable tactic, and I wish Senator Keneally was right when she said that it is without precedent. But, unfortunately, it is not without precedent in this country. There have been other threats of violence in the pursuit of political goals in the not too distant past. I wish that it was only in the context of the COVID pandemic and mandatory vaccination and other issues that members of parliament, senators, their staff and their families had been threatened, had been harassed, had been bullied, had been stalked. But we know that it isn't the only context in which these threats have happened.
You only have to ask Nicolle Flint, the member for Boothby, about her experience at the last election. A man was charged with stalking her in that election, her office was vandalised, her staff were threatened and they were made to feel unsafe doing their work for a member parliament. Unfortunately, this is not without precedent. Unfortunately, when those incidents have happened in the past, they have not been condemned in an unqualified way by people in this chamber. Perhaps the most galling contribution made so far is that of Senator Faruqi, given the association of the Greens political party with Extinction Rebellion, who not only vandalised this building, set a pram on fire at the front of it and vandalised the Lodge but regularly make threats against members of parliament and their staff and make them feel unsafe.
~~Long debate text truncated.~~