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

I am opposed to this opportunistic resolution from the member for Denison and the member for Kennedy. I say with respect to them: don't come here and lecture about what the alleged interests of Australian shipping are before you are actually aware of the facts of what this legislation is and will do. The shadow minister has not even had a briefing from the Australian Maritime Safety Authority about these issues. This is a deeply irresponsible and deeply opportunistic position that would lead to a shutting down of Australian ships and a consequential loss of massive productivity for our nation.

This proposition suggests that there is something before the Australian parliament to downgrade. There is no such proposal before the Australian parliament, none. The union responsible for putting this legislation forward has not bothered to knock on my door, as the minister in a Labor government, about the consequences of this legislation. They have not bothered to knock on the door and the deputy chair of the House of Representatives committee in this area knows full well how irresponsible this legislation is. He should talk to the leader of his party about it because his leader has also had direct briefings from Australian shipowners, the Australian shipping industry—you know, the one that put the red ensign on the back of the flags—that say they will not be able to operate if this legislation came in.

Whatever motivation people have for this being put forward, this is deeply opportunistic as is this suspension of standing orders. The opposition over here is allowing and wanting this to go forward, having put forward a proposition from the member for Cook. If they vote for this proposition to suspend standing orders, they will be voting to knock off his MPI—the so-called big issue he is concerned about and that the opposition are concerned about. That is why standing orders should not be suspended. They also should not be suspended on the basis of what happened earlier today. What happened earlier today was that an amendment was moved on the floor of the parliament by a government member that had not been seen by an opposition member

When that was pointed out to me as Leader of the House, even though there was a majority sitting over here, I quite rightly moved the adjournment of that. If this bill were to be brought on and were it to be allowed further debate—and there are further speakers from the government who wish to speak on this bill, what does this do?

The opposition's position in supporting this suspension—if they indeed support it—says that, when you have government bills before this parliament, everyone has a right to speak, but, when you have a private members' bill, it has a higher authority than a government bill. It can have just a couple of speakers in the Federation Chamber, and then we will bring it down here. Let me tell you: if it is brought down here, there will be considerable debate and a range of amendments to the legislation so it does not shut down the industry. There will be in the order of more than 80 that will be debated one by one. If we want to go down this track—and I say to the member for Denison and the member for Kennedy: with due respect, neither of them nor any of the other crossbenchers can say that at all times I have not attempted to facilitate fair and proper consideration of items of business that they have wanted to put forward. To move a suspension of standing orders to bring on a private members' bill to debate in this parliament is a complete abrogation of those proper processes and an abuse. I say this—

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