Senator BROWN (12:57 AM) —We have heard two things in the last half hour or so. The first is that the series of amendments which came in which gave ground from last December were in fact motivated by communications with the government at the highest level—I would write the words `Prime Minister' in there. The incentive was given to come further and further. But, even at the end of the day, that was not far enough. That is what we suspected all along. We were not told it. Because we were not told it and could not understand why these middle grounds kept being put forward by Senator Harradine or the ALP, we stood our ground—and it has been the right thing to do.

Tonight, when Senator Harradine came back with his amendment, the only thing for us to do was to bring back the strong amendments. I am pleased to see that, because of the Democrat and Greens' holding of the ground, the ALP is now saying, `We will take from the Greens, who have brought this amendment back, our amendment and put it forward ourselves.' That is something they will find we will be supporting. It is where we should have been last Monday night and it is certainly where we should end up tonight.

Amendment not agreed to.