Senator IAN MACDONALD (Queensland) (17:19): I also am concerned about the response from the commissioner. I would have hoped that the commissioner might have placed some great weight on the fact that the resolution to which he was responding was in fact a practically unanimous resolution of the Senate. I also want to reinforce Senator Abetz and Boswell's view that boycotts of Jewish businesses are repugnant to any democratically minded Australian. I acknowledge that a feature of the Australian democracy, in our easygoing way, is that people are free, within certain very confined grounds, to say anything and to participate in demonstrations and strikes. That is the way we are in Australia. We would never want that taken away so that we were not free to express our views and our opinions. But there is a concern that this involves Jewish businesses. It brings back the perceptions, understandings and a view of history—as Senator Abetz mentioned. These are not subjective comments; this is the history. In Germany in the 1930s through to the 1940s, and to a lesser extent in some other European countries, action was taken against businesses solely on the basis that the owners of those businesses happened to be Jewish. I cannot quote but I know enough about German history during the 1930s to know that both Hitler and Goebbels would have had reasons which they would explain to the public of Germany as to why the activity in Germany at the time was not being dealt with in a way in which Australians and most freedom-loving people around the world would have responded. I know enough of Goebbels's history to say that he would have given an explanation and if you wanted to believe it you could easily have done so. The incident to which Senator Boswell referred and which he has been passionate about for some time involves the boycott of a business on the sole basis, as I understand it, that it is Jewish. At a cursory glance, maybe it does make a point about some incident that is happening overseas. But here it is the sort of explanation that Goebbels would have given. He would have given it glibly and cleverly, as most propagandists do. In Australia at this stage of our history, or at any stage, we do not want to allow our country to be involved in any sorts of boycotts that impact on people's businesses, their livelihoods and their ability to act freely because they happen to be Jewish people. I am not as familiar with all of the ins and outs of the Greens political party as Senator Boswell clearly is. I know he has followed this very closely because he is passionate about it. I cannot quite work out what the Greens' view on this issue is. In fact, I have to confess that— Senator Williams: They don't know themselves. Senator IAN MACDONALD: Senator Williams says, 'They don't know themselves,' but I was going to go on to say that I quite often find myself with that same problem with the Greens. The party—not individuals, I hasten to add—is full of hypocrisy on most of the angles they approach. I cannot wait to speak on something that is coming up very shortly in the Senate, the Tasmanian logging issue, and I know Senator Abetz, Senator Colbeck and others no doubt will want to have a few words on that. To me, the Greens are hypocritical in their policy approach to many things, but it does appear from my very limited understanding of the Greens' approach to the issue of boycotting Jewish businesses that there are certainly contradictory and conflicting results and approaches. I suspect many of the broader membership of the Greens would want to boycott Jewish businesses for reasons that they would justify to themselves. I appreciate that Senator Brown—whilst I have little respect for his policy approach, I do have some respect for his political cunning—realised that this particular issue cost the Greens a seat in the New South Wales parliament at a recent election. Senator Brown realised that the party in New South Wales was on a course which most New South Welshmen found repugnant. He stepped in to try to, as Senator Boswell said, 'airbrush' that out of the policy of the Greens political party. We have to be clear and unequivocal on this. I am, as I say, disappointed that the commissioner responded in the way that he did. I would have hoped that this was such an important issue, an issue that received almost unanimous support from this chamber for the ACCC to look into it, that there might have been a different response. I have not been able to fully study Mr Sims's explanation of why he did not but I would have thought it was such an important issue that the comments that Senator Brown and Senator Abetz made on this particular issue would warrant a very serious consideration by the Chairman of the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. I conclude by again saying how proud I am of Senator Boswell, who has raised this, and my other colleagues. I know it is an issue that Senator Abetz has very strong views on as well. I know that many in the government also have very strong views. We must never allow Australia to be placed in a situation where businesses are attacked, where people's livelihoods are attacked, where their freedom to do what everyone else in Australia can do is impeded upon simply because the owners of those businesses happen to be of Jewish extraction. We must never let that happen in Australia. Anything that we, the ACCC or Victoria Police can do to stop that is something that should be encouraged and supported. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Moore ): Senator Brown, the time on this document runs out at 5.33.