Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I do appreciate the gift of a procedural debate today. So, thank you to the Manager of Opposition Business for bringing it on. I'd remind the seconder of the motion that the clocks that count down refer to a time limit, not a time target. When you run out of material and you're left to talk about where the skylights in the building are, you're always allowed to sit down before the clock gets to zero. The option is always available to you.

It is important to explain for the Hansard that, when the Manager of Opposition Business was referring to the fact that the media can come into this room and have the scrutiny of physically being in this room, he gestured to a gallery—which Hansard will not record unless I refer to it now—that actually has nobody in it from the press gallery at this point in time. But the press gallery is able to monitor this in the exact same way as the press gallery is able to monitor the Federation Chamber, because they're both televised and they're both online. They're both available. They're filmed constantly.

But I can tell you that the argument about why we send certain bills to the Federation Chamber has been raised, and I'm surprised that it's being claimed that this is where you send legislation that you don't want anyone to see. Last Tuesday, those opposite moved that their own private member's bill on mandatory minimum sentences be brought on for debate, and guess where they said they wanted it to be debated? The Federation Chamber, the room without a skylight—that's where they wanted their own private member's bill to be debated. We've often had various debates go up there. I hope those opposite would never describe legislation like their own private member's bill, given the topic area, or state sponsors of terrorism or hate crimes legislation in that way. Significant legislation goes there all the time.

What we always look at when we're working out where different pieces of legislation should go is the speaking list, because the speaking list gives an indication of how many members are likely to want to be able to speak. I've got a copy of the speakers list. The environment legislation has been all through the media. It's very important legislation. I introduced it last Thursday. The debate will begin with the relevant shadow minister making a speech, and then the debate will go on. How many people have put their names down to speak on the environment legislation? 48. When we're prioritising which legislation goes here and which goes to the Federation Chamber, I think it's completely significant that a bill that 48 members of parliament have indicated that they want to speak on—a lot are those opposite; more are on the government side, but still I think it's in the order of 18 or something opposition members—be debated in the main chamber. That matters.

Regarding the bill that they've just spoken about, the shadow minister always speaks in the chamber, so the speech from the shadow minister was in the chamber, and that was part of the declaration I've already made. Guess how many people have put their names on the list to speak on freedom of information other than the first speaker? Zero. So we actually have a situation right now where those opposite are taking up 25 minutes of the House's time, the House where they say the debate should happen, to have a debate about bringing a debate here where there are no additional speakers who have put their names forward at all, not one. Forty-eight people put themselves forward for a piece of legislation, so we scheduled the debate for here. No-one other than the shadow minister put their name forward for the freedom-of-information legislation, and they're wanting to have us vote on where no-one should speak. That's what this vote is about. We've just had their speeches, and we're now going to have to bring everybody in here to vote on where the bill with no-one listed to speak should be debated, because that's the issue with transparency. That's what's in front of us right now. I'm sure, now that this has been exposed—

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