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

I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Watson from moving the following motion forthwith:

That the House:

(1) notes that:

(a) the Senate is today sitting while it remains unclear which Senators were validly elected under the Constitution; and

(b) the Government has not revealed how long it has known there were questions over the validity of the composition of the Senate and why it has kept this information secret from the Australian people;

(2) therefore, calls on the Prime Minister to immediately attend the Chamber to provide a full and honest account of the Government’s knowledge and involvement of the potential constitutional issues concerning the composition of the Senate;

(3) notes the chaos in the Senate has today extended to the House of Representatives, when for the first time a Government MP has seconded a private Members’ motion which condemned the Government for “short changing Australian pensioners”;

(4) congratulates the Member for Wright in joining the Minister for Revenue and the Minister for Justice in their willingness to condemn the Turnbull Government on the floor of the House; and

(5) condemns the Government for its failure to manage the Parliament where every week there is a new stumble in the House and we now know the Senate has been sitting with a cloud over whether its composition is valid under the Australian Constitution.

This parliament is a shambles. This parliament is in chaos. In the Senate they do not know who should be there—

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