Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Chief Government Whip for his question and acknowledge the fact that his predecessor, the former member for Chifley, was here in the House today. When we took our places in the 43rd Parliament, there was some concern about how well the new parliament would function. It has certainly exceeded expectations in terms of its effectiveness and in terms of appropriate debates on legislation before this House. Indeed, in just this fortnight 29 pieces of legislation have passed this House and today we saw a historic event. Today we saw the first morning of votes on private members’ business before this parliament.

The first item of private members’ business that was voted upon was the private member’s bill by the member for Denison, the Evidence Amendment (Journalists’ Privilege) Bill 2010. I congratulate the member for Denison for putting forward that piece of legislation and for securing the support of everyone in the House. The bill passed this parliament at 9.15 and 41 seconds this morning. As a new member, the member for Denison might not be aware that his bill was the first piece of private members’ legislation to pass the House this century. For that I think he should be congratulated.

Then we went to the second bill before the House, the Commission of Inquiry into the Building the Education Revolution Program Bill 2010. We have heard a lot of squawking from the member for Sturt about the BER bill and the need for a royal commission into the BER, but when it came to the crunch he could not even come into this parliament and call for a division on it.

See this speech in context