00:00Later this evening we can pause to remember the tragedy of innocent souls, 15 innocent Australians
00:08who were slaughtered on Bondi Beach, that we pay tribute to them in memory of how our nation changed
00:15in that moment at 7.01pm and I would encourage all Australians this evening to pause and to reflect
00:21and to acknowledge what has been thrust upon this nation and what we must do to fix it.
00:26And that is what we as a nation have tried to do and as a parliament over the last couple of days
00:33and the National Party did that in good faith and we went down there to ensure that we faced up to the challenges
00:41that this nation now faces with anti-Semitism and the rise of radical Islam.
00:47That is what we are charged with the responsibility of doing, that's what we Jewish Australians are protected
00:53but every Australian is protected and that hard-fought right of freedom of speech is protected.
00:59That's the responsibility as legislators that we have and that we've undertaken.
01:03And the lens in which we made our decisions and worked collaboratively for the last two, three days while in Canberra.
01:10This was a rushed process. We are talking about national security matters with complex legislation,
01:17complex legislation that should be scrutinised and understood before we're forced to vote on it.
01:23That was the disappointing fact of it, that we were prepared to come back to parliament before Christmas
01:28to make a determination, even on the migration piece, that we supported.
01:34We believe that the immigration ministers should have more powers to send people home,
01:38to deport those who come to this country who are here as guests and then perpetrate and spew hate.
01:43They should be sent home. We supported that and that could have been put in place before Christmas
01:47and we could have started the process with the government in making sure that we got the other pieces
01:53of this legislation, particularly around hate speech and those organisations that espouse it,
01:59to be able to make sure that the free speech of Australians that has been hard-fought is protected.
02:06That was the ideology that we went to Canberra on.
02:10And I made it very clear to everybody and to our coalition partners that we were prepared to support
02:17the migration changes on Sunday evening, but we had serious reservations about the freedom of speech
02:23and the listing of hate organisations.
02:27We have and still wish to see Hizbeth Tia and also the neo-Nazis removed.
02:34We wanted to make sure, but, that we got the right mechanism that didn't impinge on honest Australians' right to speak.
02:41That was the fine balance and that was where our challenge was.
02:44And so on Sunday I made that very clear to our coalition partners that my party room had made a determination on Sunday
02:49that we could only support the migration elements of this bill.
02:53We would work constructively, but, and from that, that we would send to the Prime Minister the principles,
03:00principles that we could agree on, that he could come back with the amended legislation,
03:04and we would work constructively.
03:06We did that on Monday and through on Tuesday, in fact getting and securing many amendments,
03:12but we were actually asked to get to a position as the bill was being put into the parliament.
03:19That's not a fair process, that's not a proper process for your legislators to go through.
03:24We made it clear and we tried every, we made every effort to ensure that we could get both bills through,
03:30and we weren't far off, but we just didn't have that comfort and we ran out of time.
03:36And we made it clear, and I had continually had conversations with Susan Lee to bring her along
03:42and understand our position and the sovereignty of our room, in that the process needed to respect both rooms,
03:49and that if required a joint party room or a shadow cabinet be reconvened.
03:54But the reality was our room was working to it, but on Tuesday we got to that position,
03:59just around lunchtime, that we didn't have enough confidence and we would not support it.
04:04Now, I told Susan Lee and made it very clear to her that we were in a position that our party room would vote against it,
04:12and that means I would vote against it.
04:13If my party room gets to a determination, I would vote against it.
04:17She asked, out of respect, that we had amendments, if we could put those amendments,
04:22and if they were failed, then consider voting a different way.
04:27I, out of respect to her, went back to our room, and we started drafting amendments.
04:34Unfortunately, the House of Representatives vote came on, and out of respect to her,
04:39our shadow ministry did not vote and actually abstained from that vote
04:44until we were able to put our amendments that could only come up in the Senate.
04:48And we stuck to our word.
04:50Those amendments were put up in the Senate.
04:52They are actually lost in the Senate, and therefore, our three senators who are in shadow cabinet
04:57and our other senator in the National Party, Matt Canavan, voted against that
05:02as the will of the National Party party room, as was our direction to them.
05:07That was their responsibility to undertake and to go in and to make that.
05:13And when there had been no joint party room, there had been no further shadow cabinet meeting
05:17to determine beyond the principles of what we initially took to Anthony Albanese on the Sunday,
05:23the National Party acted in good faith all the way along.
05:26We acted in good faith to get to this position, but we could not be forced into voting for a position.
05:32The National Party is our own sovereign party, and Susan Lee cannot force us to vote one way or another.
05:38And when we have not breached any process, any procedure of the coalition,
05:42we've been respectful for them to get to a position where three of our senators,
05:49who are in shadow cabinet spots, are being asked to resign on Wednesday morning.
05:56I sent those three letters that our senators prepared, along with a fourth letter on Wednesday morning to Susan Lee.
06:04And those three letters were from those senators to resign their tenure.
06:08But I sent a letter advising Susan Lee that if she accepted those resignations,
06:15because it would not be appropriate to, considering the circumstances we had,
06:19then our entire ministry will resign.
06:22We're not offering a resignation for her to accept or not.
06:25We are tendering our resignation.
06:29And subsequent to that, unfortunately, Susan Lee has ignored that,
06:34and she will not, and from subsequent conversations,
06:36will not reinstate those three senators to the shadow cabinet positions.
06:41Therefore, the entire ministry resigned,
06:44but she has also forced the coalition into an untenable position that can no longer continue.
06:49This is not what the National Party wants.
06:53But I cannot stand by and have three courageous senators who put their jobs on the line
06:59for no reason that has any veracity whatsoever to be disrespected,
07:06and our party, and our party processes and our decisions.
07:09That is the beauty of parliament.
07:11That is the beauty of the democracy that we live in,
07:13that we should have the right to go there and have a difference of opinion.
07:16We accept there are processes within the coalition that we need to adhere to at times,
07:24but there was never a trigger moment for that.
07:27And if these three senators could not be accepted,
07:29then our coalition has become untenable.
07:32This process wasn't all Susan Lee's fault.
07:37Anthony Albanese put her in this process,
07:39but it has been mismanaged by Susan Lee.
07:41And there was an out yesterday to not accept these three resignations.
07:49She was aware of the consequences, if she did,
07:51that the National Party were being forced into an untenable position around the coalition,
07:57and she still made that decision.
07:59This is not what we wanted.
08:00But can I say, just in closing before I enter, Kevin,
08:04how proud I am of the men and women in the National Party Party Room.
08:08I've been there 10 years.
08:09I have never seen our party room more united,
08:12more united in solidarity of one another,
08:16of the courage and the conviction of the people
08:18that are there to represent the Australian people
08:22in a way that in their moment, in that moment,
08:27they're prepared to do what they believe in their conscience is the right thing.
08:31That's the courage of conviction that the National Party has.
08:35That is the beautiful thing of democracy,
08:37that we should always protect.
08:39And this is the most disappointing moment that we had to get to,
08:43but unfortunately we find ourselves in it.
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