Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I have a few things. First of all, I don't think the motion that's been moved will be carried, so this may not have an impact. Even if carried, it would potentially have no effect because what the Manager of Opposition Business has moved is to suspend standing orders that would prevent the order of the day for the consideration of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Strengthening Protections Against Discrimination) Bill 2023 being called on immediately.

Why, if that were carried, would it have no effect? There is no order of the day. He's described it as an order of the day in the motion. At the end of my speech, we will vote on that. I don't think it will be carried, so it won't actually matter, and certainly not carried by an absolute majority. But if it were to be carried, I'm not sure what we'd do, because it refers to bringing on an order of the day that doesn't exist. Not only does the order of the day not exist today; because the Manager of Opposition Business has handled this today in a way that no Manager of Opposition Business has handled these issues in the history of the parliament, none of these four bills will be on the Notice Paper for tomorrow either or for the day after. When he says 'the normal process', where the Leader of the House would often stand up and take the call: what would happen would be that Christopher Pyne would be here and I'd be over there, and we'd both be jumping trying to get the call at the same time.

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