House debates

Wednesday, 5 December 2018

Business

Rearrangement

12:55 pm

Photo of Mr Tony BurkeMr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business (House)) Share this | Hansard source

The minister at the table says he thought he had me. He was making some compelling points until he decided that this was an adjudication on whether or not the government is getting on with the job. You had me; you gave it away with one line! Let's not forget what we've been willing to suspend standing orders for. We were willing to suspend the entire parliament, and I participated in suspending the entire parliament, so that we could deal with new laws about strawberries, which were then never used. But we decided that it was important enough to stop the parliament for. Surely if we did that then the state of health and medical advice for people in an extraordinary predicament at the moment with respect to the migration amendment that's before us is a reason for the parliament to pause and say, 'Let's deal with that.' Surely, in the same way, dealing with a national integrity commission, given the views of both houses of parliament, is an issue that is worth having the parliament stop and make sure we deal with it. There will still be time for the different ministers to introduce their bills. There's no doubt that will still be done. Might I add that not only will that be done but also the bills that are being introduced aren't going to be voted on today anyway. In fact, the bill that the minister referred to won't be voted on until February next year at the earliest—if at all, because, as we know, there are only 10 days in eight months to be able to deal with legislation. If they had thought the bill they were introducing today was particularly urgent, they would have put forward a very different sitting calendar.

I also want to thank the crossbench and the member for Melbourne for making sure—even though the member for Melbourne has a different view on the bill—that the motion provides that, if there is agreement between the government and the opposition on national security legislation, it will still be allowed to be brought on and dealt with at any point. I think what we have in front of us is a very reasonable set of bills that have been put forward by the crossbench. There is no doubt that these issues are more urgent than simply introducing bills that will not be dealt with by February—and probably, realistically, a whole lot of them won't make it through the parliament until August or September at the earliest. With that in mind, the opposition is happy to support the suspension of standing orders that's in front of us.

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