Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

That is okay, I can understand why you have that particular name on your mind at the moment, Mr Acting Deputy President!

Senator Collins is right that the opposition has displayed a great deal of cooperation and goodwill in relation to the legislative management in this chamber. In fact, many pieces of legislation have moved at a good pace through the parliament, with all colleagues having had the opportunity to debate, to contribute and to air their views, which is as it should be.

As an opposition, we have also agreed from time to time to additional hours. In fact, in the Senate-only sitting week last week we agreed to commence proceedings an hour and a half earlier to facilitate additional consideration of government business. So we have brought a very positive attitude to bear and we do not rule out of hand, as a matter of course, motions that seek to vary hours. We consider them on a case-by-case basis, but the motion which is before us today we cannot support—due to both what is within the motion and what is not in the motion.

To come, firstly, to what is in the motion that we cannot accept, that is the guillotine in relation to consideration of the Low Aromatic Fuel Bill 2012. This particular item in the motion indicates that the fix is in. The only reason the Australian Greens are agreeing to this motion is that the government has essentially adopted the Greens' Low Aromatic Fuel Bill as a piece of government legislation. If this bill were not in this motion, with a guillotine attached, then the Australian Greens would not be supporting the motion that is before us.

The Low Aromatic Fuel Bill is one that I know many colleagues have an interest in. Senator Scullion, in particular, has a great interest in it. He and I were talking about this bill earlier and he was very keen for me to make the points that: this bill would exempt itself in large part from the Racial Discrimination Act, it would invoke the race powers of the Constitution and it would go against the recommendations of the committee set up to examine it. Given there are issues of great contention, how can this chamber consider gagging debate on this particular piece of legislation? The proposition for this particular bill is:

from 7.30 pm to 7.45 pm—second reading—

that is not a great deal of time—15 minutes—and then:

from 7.45 pm to 8.15 pm—all remaining stages.

We would have barely 45 minutes to consider this particular piece of legislation. The Australian Greens and the government are not embracing the spirit of this place, which is to ensure adequate and proper consideration of legislation. We cannot support this motion because that is in the motion, but we also cannot support the motion because of what is not in it.

What is not in the motion is what is euphemistically here called 'time management' but which is more widely known as 'the guillotine'. We know that the guillotine is coming. How do we know it is coming? We only need to look at item No. 2 in government business notices of motion, where we have a motion to exempt from the cut-off a number of bills. The purpose of the motion to exempt these bills from the cut-off is that they can subsequently be guillotined later this week. If for one second we thought that the government would allow full debate on these pieces of legislation, subject to the cut-off, we might entertain exempting them from the cut-off. But why would we exempt them from the cut-off when we know that they are only going to be guillotined later in the week? We know that is coming.

We cannot accept this motion because of the guillotine that is contained within it and we cannot accept this motion because it is predicated on the following motion being passed, which we know will lead to the guillotining. Again, it is the perversity of this government, where on the one hand they say, 'Look, we want to have extra hours to allow debate,' but on the other hand they are intending to guillotine to curtail debate. Those two things are in conflict, and the strangest thing of all, of course, is that this motion proposes that the Senate finishes its business earlier on Thursday.

The opposition are strongly of the view that we should follow the pattern of the week as it was scheduled and that there should not be a guillotine on the Low Aromatic Fuel Bill—or any other bill, for that matter. We should continue to work cooperatively, as we and other parties have shown that this chamber is well capable of doing, to ensure that those bills which do need to be passed in a particular time frame are indeed passed. We cannot support the motion.