It is great to speak on this Greens motion. It is great to see the Greens want to take some action on corporate tax evasion. Hopefully they will support the government's bill to clamp down on R&D issues for large companies. My understanding is that the Greens are not supporting that. Certainly the Labor Party are not supporting it right now. Read more

Mr President, I will start with an apology to you. I am sorry to keep you around here for 20 minutes, but I did think that you enjoyed my speech so much the other night that I will actually double it tonight. I know that the hard working girls in the whips office, Charlotte and Bec, really enjoyed it, so I am going to 20 minutes tonight. Read more

When I sit here and listen to the arguments of the other side in this debate and during question time, I am reminded of that great American children's TV show Sesame Street. The children up in the gallery are perhaps more recent viewers of that show than I am, but I remember that there is a great song in Sesame Street called 'One of These Things is not Like the Other'.  Read more

It is a great pleasure to rise tonight to speak about a very important industry, particularly to Queensland—the sugar industry. Sugar has traditionally been and still is an extremely important industry to Queensland, but it is also very important to the whole nation.  Read more

Thanks for sticking around tonight to hear the blazing insights I will have at a quarter past 10 on a Monday evening. I also want to thank the hard-working girls in the Whip's office, Charlotte and Bec. I know they are just as keen to hear those blazing insights. Read more

Following on from Senator Whish-Wilson, I too have met with businesses to discuss this issue. Only a month ago, I was in Stanthorpe, which is south-west of Brisbane. I went to dinner there and I was expecting to talk about 457 visas for growers, wine equalisation tax issues and tourist issues, but there was a small business man there who has a financial advice business in Stanthorpe, with offices in Warwick. Read more

I did not have the honour of directly being involved in the G20 proceedings on the weekend, but I did go to an event on Sunday night in Brisbane. It was on the sidelines of the G20, and it was organised on those sidelines. It was a conference put together by the Australian Digital Currency Commerce Association. They put on a conference in Brisbane today with some of the delegates and some countries sticking around for it. I thank them for inviting me to that and asking me to say a few words. Read more

It is a great honour to rise tonight on a day where some history has been made in this place with the historic signing of the trade agreement between Australia and China. Tonight I too want to talk about history, the history of the National Party, or the Country Party as it was called.  Read more

I was just speaking to Senator Day, from South Australia, about a fellow state person of his, Bert Kelly, who used to be the member for Wakefield for a long time. He would be familiar to many people in this House. Along with his many other achievements, statements and successes over time, Bert Kelly also had an aphorism that, when you heard a politician or a government announcing a new dam, you could smell an election just around the corner. Read more

I want to follow on from the comments that Senator Birmingham made. I think he was onto something when he was comparing the inaction on the submarines while Labor were last in government to what they were doing on the NBN. They did spend billions of dollars on the NBN and we all saw the results of that—not much service to people and nothing rolled out, but lots of money spent.  Read more