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Tuesday, 15 October 2019
Page: 3021

Senator DI NATALE (Victoria—Leader of the Australian Greens) (18:06): I ask that general business notice of motion No. 180 standing in my name today, relating to the Turkish invasion in north-east Syria» , be taken as a formal motion.

The PRESIDENT: Is there any objection to this motion being taken as formal? There is an objection. Formality has been denied.

Senator DI NATALE: I seek leave to make a one-minute statement.

The PRESIDENT: Leave is granted for one minute.

Senator DI NATALE: There's the utter hypocrisy of the coalition. You always stand up in here and say that foreign policy motions are too complex to be debated in this chamber during motions and yet you supported the Labor Party putting forward a foreign policy. Why don't you guys just sit on the same side for a change? Why don't you just sit on the same side? You're a disgrace. You're an absolute disgrace.

The PRESIDENT: Order! Senator Di Natale, through the chair.

Senator DI NATALE: You are a disgrace. There was the execution just a few days ago of Kurdish leader, Hevrin Khalaf—unarmed, pulled out of her vehicle and shot to death. She'd been working to unite the Arabs, the Christians and the Kurds in north-east «Syria» . This is just one example of a number of atrocities that are going on right now in «Syria at the hands of the Turkish military, and you've got your head so far up the backside of Donald Trump that you refuse to take a stand on it. You are a disgrace. There are people, Australians, locked up right now in camps, and you refuse to do something about kids who are facing extermination at the hands of a brutal regime. We've abandoned them, left them alone, and here you are playing politics, because you refuse to take a stand. It is an absolute disgrace. It's about time you acknowledged that there are Australians citizens who are locked up right now, and we have had months and months and months to do something about it, to do something about the kids who are starving right now and are confronting disease, and what you are doing is playing politics in this chamber. It's about time you got your head out of the—

The PRESIDENT: Order! Senator Di Natale, please resume your seat. Senator Di Natale, I grant leaders of parties some discretion. I called you to order to make your comments through and to the chair and not directed at other senators in that fashion. That is inappropriate.

Senator Di Natale interjecting—

The PRESIDENT: Senator Di Natale, you can debate those matters. They're not for me to answer on behalf of 75 other senators.