Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

At some point today we are, I hope, going to have a substantive debate about whether the amendments get accepted or not. I just want to raise one point about something the Manager of Opposition Business said. The Manager of Opposition Business, a senior Liberal politician, said, 'We can't debate this now because we've only had the amendments for two hours.' Well, the amendments were made public and were out in the Senate last Thursday.

Perhaps the member for Bradfield exercised his own right to disconnect over the weekend and decided not to read the amendments that were circulating. I know many of those opposite went and spoke about them publicly and gave media interviews about them, but these amendments have been available for hours. It is classic Liberals that they don't want to work over the weekend but they want everyone else to be available, to be on call 24/7! If he paid any attention, had perhaps not waited until this morning to read the amendment for the first time but had looked at it when it was in the Senate over the weekend, he'd have seen that there is the word 'reasonable' in there.

It's to be expected that politicians who turn up to work on a Monday might have done some homework over the weekend about the motion they're going to come in here and argue about—including perhaps reading the amendments that they now stand up and say can't be opposed. Classic Liberals. Not wanting to work over the weekend themselves, despite six-figure salaries, and saying we need extra time to do it, but demanding that everyone else in this country be on call 24/7.

The Greens have won workers the right to disconnect; the Liberals want to delay it and then take it away. Too many people have been putting up with an interruption to their family lives and their home lives for far too long. This is a practical, commonsense right that will give people the right to switch off when they clock off. And all of the matters that are being raised by the Manager of Opposition Business, if he'd bothered to actually read the amendment over the weekend rather than waiting until this morning, he would have found out those kinds of things were all addressed. They have all been addressed and are all part of the amendment.

I hope that we're able to have this debate, and I'd urge the Manager of Opposition Business to seriously reflect on whether it's a good idea to come in here on a massive politician's salary and say: 'Sorry, I didn't have a chance to read the amendments over the weekend. I want a bit of extra time.' Well, if you can't be prepared to do it yourself—if you're exercising your own right to disconnect, Member for Bradfield, then good on you, but don't deny it to the millions of Australian workers who are stressed, who want to be able to put their kids to bed instead of having to answer emails, who want to be able to watch their kids' footy games instead of responding to texts, who want to be able to enjoy time with their mates over the weekend instead of being asked by their employer to go and convert a Word document to PDF—all of those things are rights that everyone in this country enjoys, just as the member for Bradfield enjoyed his right to disconnect over the weekend, and this parliament should get on with legislating it and approving these amendments here.

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