Senator ABETZ (Tasmania—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (18:17): Mr President, at the outset let me make it absolutely clear that we as a coalition support your ruling in relation to this matter, and we will be voting against the dissent motion moved so petulantly by the Leader of the Australian Greens towards the end of the last sitting period. I thought the silly season had ended. But it seems that for the Australian Greens the silly season can start in November and continue right through to February. I think most people in this place had assumed that after the petulant outburst by the Leader of the Australian Greens he would have taken the break over the Christmas period and the summer to reconsider his motion of dissent. Instead, he comes back and reinforces his petulance and his misunderstanding of procedure. Indeed, Mr President, it has become quite clear what this motion of dissent is all about. A well-documented proposition was put to you by Senator Kroger. You considered it and made a ruling. That was a ruling that Senator Brown did not like. So what does he do? Instead of defending himself, he lashes out; first at Senator Boswell, now Senator Joyce and Senator Cash. It seems that if Senator Brown can throw enough mud around at everybody else he somehow exculpates himself. Well, it does not work that way. We have now had the bully boy tactic, on top of all this, that he is going to engage senior counsel. One thing is for certain: you have plenty of money to do it from your $1.7 million donation—the biggest donation ever in Australian political history. So do not try and come into this place pretending you are the victim! Senator Bob Brown: Mr President, I would ask you to have Senator Abetz abide by standing orders and address the chair. The PRESIDENT: Senator Abetz, you should address the chair—that is quite correct. Senator ABETZ: He is absolutely correct on this occasion, but it shows yet again how very touchy he is whenever one mentions that huge political donation against which a would-be Leader of the Australian Greens is continually running a campaign against him within the Australian Greens: one Senator Lee Rhiannon with her website Democracy for Sale. Of course, all you need to do is look at that website and understand the internal struggles within the Australian Greens as we speak. That struggle is going on, and you do not have to rely on me. In fact, you can read a very interesting article in the Monthly which has just been published, which makes references to the Australian Greens leader as being a megalomaniac. It makes reference to the fact that it is all about him. Do you know what? That is what this motion is in fact all about. Mr President, you have made a ruling. Rather than allowing it to go to the adjudicator—which is the Privileges Committee—he is engaging expensive legal counsel with his $1.7 million donation, no doubt, and other donations that he will get. He is throwing mud at other senators. He will try every which way other than to answer the matters that ultimately are going to go before the Privileges Committee. What I cannot understand is why the Australian Greens senators have not prevailed upon their leader to desist in this petulant course of action. They have now had plenty of time over the Christmas break to say, 'You may have been a bit upset just before Christmas—end of the tiring year et cetera. But, really, this dissent motion is not a good look.' It is not a good look for the Leader of the Australian Greens and it is particularly not a good look for the Australian Greens party. More importantly, Senator Brown sought to attack the integrity of a senator whose reputation in this place is, I think, unsurpassed. That is Senator Ron Boswell, a champion of the small business community, a man who is highly regarded by all sides of politics. People know him as a man who wears his heart on his sleeve, a man who has a record second to none. Senator Brown talks about his length of service in this place; Senator Boswell could talk twice as long about his length of service in this place. It has been and continues to be a most honourable contribution, and that is where the product differentiation lies in these matters. Senator Boswell made a declaration and a statement to this place in November 2010, and in November 2011—a full 12 months later—the Leader of the Australian Greens was suddenly outraged at Senator Boswell's alleged conflict of interest, something that Senator Boswell had actually addressed the Senate about 12 months earlier. So why this affected outrage against Senator Boswell? It was Senator Kroger's application to the President asking for consideration about Senator Brown's behaviour and whether it was appropriate to have it referred to the Privileges Committee. Mr President, you made a ruling, a proper ruling, one that we fully support. But Senator Brown thinks it is always all about him. Some extravagant language has been used. He referred to himself and Senator Milne as 'two good senators'—and he was not doing it in a jocular manner. Really, when senators come into this place and start condescendingly to refer to themselves as being 'good senators', rather than having others do it on their behalf, we know the sort of megalomania that we are dealing with. I had occasion to look at the Hansard from 25 November last year, where Senator Brown said: … and let me make this very clear—that we now have a ruling from the chair, directed at me … No, it was not directed at him. It was a ruling dealing with the issues. It was not a personal matter on which you ruled, Mr President. You ruled on the information provided to you. I have no doubt that if a dossier of the extensive matters raised by Senator Kroger had been put before you dealing with Senator Arbib, Senator Abetz or anybody else in this chamber you would have come to the same ruling. It is not about the person—it is not about you, Senator Brown—it is about the facts. It is about the detail. To so immaturely personalise it yet again indicates— Senator Bob Brown: Again, I ask Senator Abetz to abide by the rules of this house. The PRESIDENT: Senator Abetz, you should address your comments to the chair. Senator ABETZ: I thought I had been. If I was not, Mr President, I apologise. We will be picking up Senator Brown, from now on, on each occasion when he does so. Mr President, he said: … we now have a ruling from the chair, directed at me … It was not a ruling about Senator Brown, it was a ruling about the facts and circumstances outlined in a very detailed dossier prepared and presented by Senator Kroger to the President. But, yes, when you are Senator Brown it is always about you. He went on to say: … is it not a matter of privilege that senators should be left in the situation where the President does not inform them that they are victims of a proposal to go to the privileges committee … Here we now have a self-description of a victim. One's heart has to bleed for Senator Brown. He is a victim. Can I suggest to Senator Brown that when people are referred to privileges committees they are not the victim of a referral, they are the subject of a referral. As somebody who has had that privilege—I have been subjected to a privileges inquiry—I do not see it as a matter about me. I do not see that I am a victim. I see it as a matter of process where individual senators have the right and indeed, if they so feel, an obligation to make those references so that these matters can be dealt with. It is not personalised. It is not about me. It is not about victimhood, which certain elements, especially up that end of the chamber, love to revel in to try to get some sort of sympathy. We have seen this sort of behaviour from the Australian Greens leader before. He sought to raise huge sums of money from the public when allegations were made that he would go bankrupt and would be thrown out of this place, but he only had a legal bill of a couple of hundred thousand dollars after yet another failed legal attempt. And he kept on raising money well beyond the limit, not telling people that the target of his campaign for money had already been reached. When it comes to big sums of money and the Australian Greens leader I suggest he would make a good state premier. Do not get between him and a bucket of money, because we know what the reaction will be. But what we have here is a situation where the Australian Greens leader, petulant as always, rushed into a strategic misadventure late last year and, rather than taking a strategic retreat and saying, 'I overstepped the mark,' is now adding insult to the injury that he occasioned to the Senate on that occasion. Indeed, so rushed and upset was the Leader of the Australian Greens about the ruling by the President that he rushed a letter to the President about Senator Boswell's situation. He wrote: I ask you to facilitate this serious matter— albeit it was over 12 months old and Senator Boswell had already given a full explanation— being referred to the Committee of Privileges for due assessment. Then he had a handwriting into the letter—that is how rushed he was; he could not even get his letter right—which said 'before the Senate rises'. So if Senator Brown has been the self-described victim of having this issue hang over him all of the Christmas break and dragging on, has he then not made Senator Boswell a victim by using the same tactic? But I forgot: if the Greens do it it is always justified; if anybody does it to the Greens it is horrible, it is terrible, it should be illegal, it should be outlawed. There is always that double standard with the Australian Greens, isn't there? Senator Brown as the Leader of the Australian Greens should never be subjected to a privileges inquiry hanging over the Christmas break. That is just intolerable, unacceptable, an abuse of process. But when he returns the favour to Senator Boswell, they are the methods of the Senate, time-honoured and something that is quite acceptable. That is why the Australian people I think are slowly waking up to the Australian Greens. They see the duplicity, they see the double standards, and that is why they are questioning what role this group has in fact in partnership with the current government. Let us make no mistake: Senator Brown's leadership is in trouble with the Australian Greens. There are very real questions being asked in the Australian Greens and this is just something to distract from that internal tension. What is the best way to get people focused? Try to create an external enemy. On this occasion the external element to get all the Greens focused away from the leadership tensions is you, Mr President. You are now the subject of this, courtesy of this dissent motion. Some of us have been around this place a bit longer than Senator Brown. We know those sorts of tactics. We may have played them ourselves in the past but have given them up. But the senator still continues to play them. So be it, but we are awake to them. We know what motivates them. No matter what Senator Brown seeks to say or seeks to assert, the allegations raised by Senator Kroger in a very detailed dossier are serious. For Senator Brown to say that these are matters that had been around since July, well, in relation to his own case that is correct to a certain extent. But of course they continued on, with question after question in this place on behalf of his donor's business interests, media conferences and speeches at the Press Club, if I recall, but whenever and wherever possible wedging in the issue— The PRESIDENT: This matter is really the matter that is before the Privileges Committee and I would caution on comment about it. That has been a matter of what both Senator Brown and you, Senator Abetz, have contributed in this debate. I have been willing to let it range wide but I just draw people's attention to that. Senator ABETZ: Thank you for that, Mr President. Unlike the Leader of the Australian Greens, I am always willing to accept your guidance. I accept that and will not move a motion of dissent or show a degree of petulance. Your warning is appropriate, albeit I was not going to canvass the issues other than the matters raised in Senator Kroger's concern related to events beyond July. I will leave it at that, but to suggest that it only refers to matters that occurred in July last year and then were delayed in being reported to the President does not accurately reflect that which Senator Kroger has done. But yet again why should I be surprised at that. The obfuscation and the misleading is something that we have unfortunately become used to. The coalition fully accepts your ruling. In this place it comes with the territory that the umpire has to make a call and even if the umpire makes a call that we do not agree with, that is the role of the umpire. Sure, we can move dissent, and if we move dissent it should be, if I might suggest, in a lot more moderate, considered manner than Senator Brown has undertaken. His personal attack on you and the suggestions that he has made about you are completely unbecoming, completely untidy, completely unseemly. You can disagree with somebody's decision and canvass those issues respectfully without seeking to denigrate the person, without seeking to denigrate that individual's reputation and in this case his standing within the community and the Senate. That is where Senator Brown has yet again overstepped the mark. Rather than respectfully setting out the reasons technically why he disagreed with the ruling, he had to go to that which he always refers to when he is in trouble, and that is the personal attack: to play the person, make the vicious comments which he did. It is completely unseemly, completely untidy, completely unnecessary, and I just wonder why the rest of the Australian Greens have not brought Senator Brown into line in relation to this. Here we are, starting the year, the first day back, with this hangover of petulance from the Leader of the Australian Greens from 2011. Apart from his question, Senator Brown's first detailed contribution which will be shown on the Hansard will be this dissent motion. It does not reflect well on Senator Brown. It does not reflect well on the Australian Greens. One thing we can say absolutely is that we have full confidence in Senator Boswell. He acted honourably. The President has made statements in relation to that. We fully support those statements and you, Mr President, continue to have our confidence.