Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

So it should be. The opinion provided to the coalition by the shadow Attorney-General makes it quite clear that entering into a contrivance or an artifice to deny a deliberative vote would have been open to challenge in the High Court. But that will not be the case because the coalition did not go down that constitutionally unsound route. The Solicitor-General did indeed cast an opinion of his own and the shadow Attorney-General, George Brandis SC, provided an excellent critique which showed that the spin that the government put on the Solicitor-General’s opinion was not in fact what the Solicitor-General had proposed at all. So, in congratulating the new Deputy Speaker and the Second Deputy Speaker, can I say that we will work constructively to make the parliament work—of course we will. On behalf of the 5½ million people who voted for the coalition, we will also be holding the government to account. That is the job that we have been elected to do. The independents decided to support the Labor Party and in doing so cast what I regard as a bad government that is getting worse back into office. We as an opposition will do our job, one that the independents have cast us into, by holding the government to account and the Deputy Speaker and the Second Deputy Speaker, both being loyal members of the coalition and in fact of the Liberal and National parties, will help us to do so, maintaining their deliberative votes and ensuring that this very bad government is held to account.

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