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

The opposition supports the motion. The consideration in detail process in the Federation Chamber is an important part of how the parliament operates. I would remind members that, even though sometimes speeches take the form of questions, it follows the protocol of debate, not the protocol of question time, which means that, if a speech is given by the opposition and the minister then responds directly, in an alternating call, the next speech would go to the opposition side. Sometimes we've had a view that the minister's speech doesn't count in the alternating call, which is a similar process to question time. That's not how consideration in detail operates. Normally, most weeks we get one blow-up where that process starts to fall apart, so I thought it was worth referring to it specifically in the chamber at the exact time that this motion is going through.

Question agreed to.

See this speech in context