Senator Jim Molan says his “baptism of fire” during his first days on the job is also a complement of sorts.
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Senator Molan spoke with Fairfax Media during a visit to the weekend’s Far South Coast National Show in Bega, where he and declared Liberal Party hopeful for Eden-Monaro Nigel Catchlove spent time meeting and chatting with numerous locals.
“It’s been absolutely fascinating,” Senator Molan said of his first two weeks in the Senate.
“It’s been a baptism of fire, but I justify to myself the fact I was attacked so viciously, both by the ALP and the Green, indicates they perhaps see me as someone who should be attacked, and that’s a compliment in a number of ways.”
However, while the public focuses on events in the political sphere such as Senator Molan’s sharing of right-wing anti-Islam videos and the growing scandal surrounding Barnaby Joyce’s family life, he said there are more important things to “fascinate” on.
In his defence, Senator Molan rejected any suggestion he was racist and said he shared the videos as he was anti-violence, not anti-Islam.
“We’re all fascinating throughout Australia on political events, but I think they are the wrong things to fascinate on.
“It would be nice to focus on what governments are doing,” Senator Molan said.
“Government has not stopped – there’s a kerfuffle going on, but government does not stop.”
One regret Senator Molan pointed out as something government has not been able to achieve yet is consensus on the Murray-Darling Plan.
“The government is doing as much as we can, but the thing that is not going as well as we would’ve wanted it to go is the Murray-Darling Plan and that’s a real shame,” he said.
“We thought it was going well, we thought we had agreement. We found the north part of the system and the south part of the system were set against each other and I thought that was very sad.
“We all depend on those extraordinary rivers for tens of thousands of jobs
“I think the plan is good – there are certain priorities you have to set and I reckon in the current plan the balance is good, it’s good for the irrigators and it’s good for the environment.”
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