Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I will make a very short contribution—I aim to do it in less than three minutes. I indicate that I will support the government's motion for these reasons. Firstly, I see one of the primary purposes of this motion is to ensure that there is a resolution to the Greens' Low Aromatic Fuel Bill. Let us put that in perspective. That bill was introduced on 1 March this year and was referred to the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee for an inquiry on 10 May this year. A report was provided to the Senate on 26 September. There was debate on 22 November, but a resolution was not reached because there were a number of speakers on that bill.

I think it is important that the bill introduced by Senator Siewert be brought to a resolution. It is an important bill. It actually relates to the welfare of Indigenous kids in this country and I think that the social benefits of that bill are considerable and it ought to be brought to a resolution. Having said that, I note that is why we are primarily supporting this motion.

Secondly, Senator Cash makes a very good point that what happened on 24 November last year was nothing short of a disgrace. We had a number of bills that were guillotined and not debated, and Senator Macdonald's point of order was a quite relevant one at the time. I remember well that, in relation to some significant changes to the Family Law Act, there was not an appropriate opportunity to actually debate a bill or to have it considered in committee. So I hope that we do not go down that path again, but I see this as being an opportunity to extend the hours so that we do not get to that position.

I can foreshadow that I will not be supporting a gag or a guillotine on government bills, because I do not think that is the right thing to do. We are a house of review. We are meant to appropriately scrutinise legislation. But in terms of dealing with the Low Aromatic Fuel Bill, there actually has been a process so that it has been dealt with quite thoroughly and, because it is a private senator's bill, there needs to be a mechanism in order to bring that to a vote, to a resolution. So, for those reasons, I will be supporting this motion but I indicate to the government that I do not, under any circumstances, want a repeat of what occurred last year, because I thought that was not a good look for democracy in terms of gagging debate on a number of important bills.