Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to talk to the Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2015-2016 and the Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2015-2016 on behalf of the opposition. At the outset—

A government senator: Just support it and sit down!

Now I feel I need to keep making a greater contribution. I will take that interjection. The Labor Party has a principled position about not blocking supply, a principled position we intend to maintain. These bills reflect measures in the 2015-16 Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, MYEFO, as well as machinery-of-government changes resulting from the leadership change last year. I note the Senate has had a big workload and we have been working together on serious legislation over a long period of time, so I will leave our contribution at that. I simply say that we will support this legislation and support it because of our principled position to support supply. That should not wrongly be interpreted as necessarily greater support for the measures that are associated with this. The principle behind this is that we will treat it as supply and, as such, it will be supported.