Page 3269 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 10 November 2021
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And he said:
The reality is that the Commonwealth Parliament is the only legislative check on the Assembly.
Madam Speaker, I turn now to what happened in the chamber on the day the motion was moved and passed, which was notably absent from Mr Hanson’s remarks. Only one member of the Canberra Liberals spoke on the motion, but it was no less than the Leader of the Opposition. In that speech, there was no acknowledgement that any clause might not represent what we all believe to be true. Senator Seselja’s name was not even mentioned by Ms Lee. The clause was not even up for debate. There was no amendment proposed. The motion was passed unanimously on the voices.
In his letter, Senator Seselja accuses Minister Rattenbury and me of failing to ascertain the veracity of our own resolution. Mr Hanson also questioned whether we knew this. The basis for this, according to Senator Seselja in his letter to you, Madam Speaker, is that Senator McMahon wrote to Senator Gallagher. He attaches that correspondence.
First, that is not correspondence that we received. Second, Senator McMahon’s letter directly contradicts her own quote from 4 July but gives no explanation of why she said what she said on 4 July. It is a very carefully worded letter. Mr Hanson has already read it into the Hansard, so I will not speak on it again, but I encourage members to reflect on exactly the words that Senator McMahon uses.
Third, if the argument of Senator Seselja, and now Mr Hanson, is, as it appears, that we should have changed the wording based on reporting in one Canberra Times article that we should have been aware of, it logically follows that, if Minister Rattenbury and I did not, the Canberra Liberals should have amended the motion. They did not. They did not debate any clause; they did not seek to amend any part; they did not vote it down. It passed unanimously. That is the fact. And why? Because the motion is not false or misleading. There is ample evidence that points to its veracity, and plenty more that points to this being about nothing but semantics.
What is clear is that, no matter how it came about, the ACT is not represented in Senator McMahon’s bill, because of Senator Seselja’s position. Senator Seselja’s letter is a red herring. This motion is nothing but a distraction from the main issue at hand. The fact remains that Senator Seselja does not stand for Canberrans on territory rights. Whichever way he wants to go about it or says that he is going about it, the fact remains that Senator Seselja is in the way.
I am glad he has toned it down today, but we have seen some extraordinary bluster and hyperbole from Mr Hanson regarding this. There was an incredible amount of effort to defend Senator Seselja on an issue that, by the Canberra Liberals’ own actions in this place, they believed to be true. Mr Hanson reflects on the distraction from territory rights, but make no mistake: this distraction has been caused by Senator Seselja and Mr Hanson. Mr Hanson has spent more time in this place talking about Senator Seselja’s record on territory rights than he has on the actual issue. That is a
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