Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens will be supporting this motion because we want to see an extension of the hours so that we can get the legislation through in a timely manner. I remind the coalition that with several pieces of legislation that have gone through this parliament recently there have been a whole lot of people added to the speakers list from the coalition who have never shown any particular interest in or expertise on a number of topics. One of those was the EU linkage bill on carbon pricing. People spoke from the same set of notes, said the same things and took up the time. If you want to gain respect in terms of engagement with the legislation and timely passage of legislation then that needs to be taken into account.

In terms of the Low Aromatic Fuel Bill, I would like to correct something that Senator Fifield has just said in relation to any of it being contrary to the committee report. That is not the case, and I would remind the Senate that the people who are asking for this bill to be passed to help young Aboriginal people are from Aboriginal communities. They are the people who have been asking for us to deal with this as quickly as possible so that young Aboriginal people can maximise their life opportunities. I would have thought that was something that every senator would be keen to facilitate. If we want to talk about appropriate time management, filibustering out debates does not help. We have some extended hours. Let's approach it in a reasonable manner and we should be able to get through the business of the Senate.