Senator MOORE (Queensland) (10:59):
The Labor Party are not supporting the Greens amendments, and we have made that clear, but we could not let the previous comments made by Senator Hanson-Young in this debate go without some response. This is not a debate about political donations, Senator Hanson-Young.
Senator Hanson-Young: No, but it should be. You're both as bad as each other.
Senator MOORE: You must have got the agenda wrong. You must have found the wrong place to make yet another personal attack on other parties. We want a debate-
Senator Hanson-Young: It's just a bit of a coincidence-
The TEMPORARY CHAIR ( Senator Back ): Order! Senator Moore, resume your seat. Senator Moore will be heard in silence, and I ask that you direct your comments through the chair.
Senator MOORE: We are, as you all know in this place, more than happy to have a debate on the issue of political donations, and our policy is really clear. But Senator Hanson-Young comes in here in a debate about a bill around offshore petroleum and strongly puts her case in terms of the environmental issues. She has every right to make those arguments, and I have no doubt we will listen to them just as we will in the Senate inquiry-those things will be before the inquiry. But to colour this debate by making statements about publicly declared donations to the parties and then to draw that inference just to get a quick point in this debate does not value the issues about which we are talking.
I am not going to go down the long discussed history of who gets what from whom in political processes in this place. We have heard a lot about who has received large donations from which companies and from which individuals. There is a time to have that debate. But again, rather than looking at the key issues of this particular debate, which is what we are looking at, we have had it taken aside just for a cheap line, and I think it has been heard by a number of people. Linking one company to cash for comment does not progress the debate. So we will put on record that we are not supporting the amendments. We are more than happy for the debate to continue. We want to ensure that there is effective processing of environmental concerns when looking at our energy future in this nation. But yelling abuse across this chamber will not achieve that and will just ensure that, again, the real issues are not considered.
