Senator O'BRIEN (12:40 PM) —Given it is broadcast day, I am not surprised that Senator Brown runs that sort of argument. A bit of free publicity to run an untenable argument is something that Senator Brown never misses.

The fact of the matter is that a whole range of options would exist for minimising impact, including taking steps to know whether the animals are actually present at the time. But of course that is not the sort of option that Senator Brown would like to put up as one that we might consider. He wants to set up the straw man in his untenable argument so he can demonstrate to those who are listening, and who may not appreciate the whole range of options that might be considered, that perhaps we have not considered anything realistic in relation to harm minimisation. But of course we have. There are people of goodwill from the Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources, the Department of the Environment and Heritage and non-government environment organisations—which I would have thought Senator Brown had some confidence in—who will be looking at these matters. They will all be looking at how these matters can be minimised in the review that we talked about, but Senator Brown is not keen for that sort of argument to get out to the public. He wants to put a much more distorted view for the purposes of propaganda, and he uses broadcast day to do it.

He does not tell the listeners that his amendment is about a ban on seismic testing. That is what his amendment is about. Let us not be under any illusion. We did say when this matter was before the Senate on the last occasion that we would not support a blanket ban, and that is the effect of Senator Brown's amendment. We have considered the Democrat amendment, which is slightly less onerous but poses some problems, and I have explained the reasons we will not be supporting it at this time. Whilst we have concerns that this matter is addressed sensitively, we believe there is a mechanism to do it. We believe there are within the department, non-government organisations and the community generally people of goodwill who will see that this matter is pursued properly on the basis of not a cheap political point on broadcast day but getting an outcome which allows for the pursuit of a resource which is important to this community—whether we like it or not—and allows businesses that support this economy to continue to operate. We believe there are appropriate measures which can and will be put in place. We will support the current process, and we do not want to derail this piece of legislation. I indicate that the opposition view has not changed, but I was not prepared to let that piece of propaganda go unanswered.