Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

Now he is interjecting and wanting to claim, 'Oh no; we've got all these pieces of legislation in front of us.' They are all redundant pieces of legislation. To be cleaning them out, to be getting rid of redundant legislation, is neither here nor there but it is certainly not a reason for wanting to gag debate. If you look at the grand figures for what the government is claiming they are wanting to achieve on deregulation, the Prime Minister's figure is $2.33 billion. That is what he is intending to achieve on deregulation, removal of red tape. Today we have $1.8 million in front of us—and this is meant to be a carnival, a festival, a big bonfire of red tape. If today is an indication of the pace at which the government is pursuing deregulation, there will be 1,000 such days before the Prime Minister can reach his target. It will take 1,000 days like today before the Prime Minister can reach his target. And what have they attached those savings to? They have attached them to issues like the removal of hyphens, the removal of commas. It is going to be, from this government a punctuation-led recovery. What we have from the government here is nothing more than the ultimate example of spin and style over the top of substance.

I believe that we should handle this bill in the way we handle any non-controversial and non-urgent legislation, and that is that we refer it to the Federation Chamber. That is what we do when something is neither here nor there. That is what we do when we are dealing with something controversial. To think that we are going to have fanfare and the dedication of an entire day in parliament to changes in punctuation, to abolishing redundant legislation! That that is worthy of people coming from around the nation, in the spotlight of the media, and saying, 'This is what the parliament's all about,' shows how little the government has to offer. With that in mind, to the motion that has been moved I move:

That all words after "occurring" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"the bills being referred to the Federation Chamber for further consideration, then being returned to the House no sooner than 24 November 2014."

The reason for that amendment is to keep it within the framework of a debate management motion, to keep it within the framework that the government does not want this to be able to drag on forever—but also to provide the opportunity to test whether or not there are in fact dozens of members on the other side willing to support the member for Kooyong, because I reckon there probably are not. I reckon if anyone is wanting to cut this debate short—

See this speech in context