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

The government certainly will be voting to uphold your ruling. I say to the opposition, in this entire tactic, just two words: own goal. There are times in opposition when you move a motion of dissent, but start with this principle: at any point in time, it is always in the interests of the opposition for things that can be said to be as restricted as possible. There would be times when the term, if it was an electricity bill or something and Bronwyn Bishop was in the chair—she was in the chamber today. We'd always argue, 'You need to be more restricted.' That's always in the interest of the opposition. This is the first time I can imagine an opposition wanting to open the net wider, particularly on how members are addressed. But then, to have a ruling that was fine by them when it was given by the Speaker, but, on today of all days, the moment the same ruling is made by the Deputy Speaker, they have a problem with it—but then it goes one step further. This, certainly—I've had more time that I wanted in opposition. There was always this rule: that the thing that you don't do is grandstand and prevent your leader from giving a speech on the MPI.

Effectively, you've got the time that government business doesn't take up—that we reserve for the MPI—and everyone there knows the consequences of what happens when there's a dissent motion moved instead. Effectively, we've had the shadow Treasurer and the Manager of Opposition Business decide that the speeches they just gave were more important than what their leader had prepared and had submitted to the Speaker and the speech that their leader had started to give. This is the consequence of what they have done. To have a situation where the shadow Treasurer and the Manager of Opposition Business decide, a few minutes into the speech of the Leader of the Opposition, 'enough of that' and that they want to be the ones in the sun and that they'll be the ones getting the attention and they'll be the ones because their rhetoric is more important than what had been prepared by the Leader of the Opposition is—I want to say it's a bad tactic, but I don't know how you can even describe it as a tactic, because to use those roles to prevent your leader from giving a speech in the MPI that's been prepared in that way is extraordinary.

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