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

As I've said before, we look at the speaking lists. We have a speaking list where we have 48 people wanting to speak, so we put that on for debate. We have a speaking list where no-one other than the shadow minister puts themselves forward to speak and so we put that bill to the Federation Chamber. It is a logical way to manage the House, to make sure that this chamber always has business before it. There are times in the Federation Chamber when, because there are bills that very few people have put themselves down for, it ends up running out of business. It's fine for the Federation Chamber to complete its business, but this House needs to keep going. We therefore favour the bills with the longest speaking lists. That's what has happened. We've heard passionate speeches saying that no-one should be listed to speak and we've heard passionate speeches about skylights. It's probably time that we brought a very silly motion to an end and voted on it.

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