Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

Continuing with the issue of foreign affairs and trade—of which we have only just begun and of which we have only had 10 minutes for consideration in detail before we were interrupted by a division. Acting on the advice of the Deputy Clerk, who advises us that it is up to the chamber to make a decision about how long we proceed here, I think that we should be able to have, at the very least, half an hour for the important issue of foreign affairs and trade.

The fact that this government now wants to run away after 10 minutes of dealing with the issue of foreign affairs and trade and tourism tells you that this government is afraid of being accountable for the decisions that it has made in this budget. If the foreign minister and the trade minister do not come back to this chamber now for 20 minutes to answer questions, then it tells us that they are not prepared to be answerable for the decisions they have made.

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