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

They had moments when they tried to be relevant to the dissent. One of their arguments was to say that they were okay with it during question time, but they weren't going to allow it in places other than question time. I'd simply say refer to the standing orders. When a ruling is made on the principle of what you are allowed to say in a question, then, yeah, there are different rules on what happens during question time and what happens outside. When a ruling is given about what you're allowed to say in an answer, there are different standing orders for what happens during question time and what happens outside. When a ruling is given about addressing members by their title, the standing orders don't distinguish. It's exactly the same.

I'm trying to work out what the difference is for those opposite between the exact same ruling being given by the Speaker and it being given shortly after by the deputy speaker. I am trying to work out why they might respond differently to an identical ruling, because, when the ruling was made during question time, they all accepted it. When the ruling was made during question time and someone had to leave question time as a result of that ruling, there was no dissent there. But there was dissent moved when the deputy speaker was in the chair. There was dissent moved when it would prevent the Leader of the Opposition from completing the MPI.

In terms of own goals, this one is breathtaking. Maybe, tomorrow, the tactics committee will allow the Leader of the Opposition to put in the same MPI again—the first few minutes—and we'll hear what it is. But to have a situation where, in a whole lot of what they had said in terms of the Minister for Climate Change and Energy—they were saying, 'He doesn't take MPIs.' He's here. He's been sitting here. You've got a day when it's meant to be the most elevated moment—an opposition can decide when they put their leader forward for the MPI. At that exact moment, you've got the relevant cabinet minister at the table ready to debate. Then you get two others who say, 'Oh, no!' They want to have their 'look at me' moment, and it's going to be about them instead, because they want to make an argument, which was already disproved during question time, about the fact that the previous presidents in charge of negotiations have also been cabinet ministers in their own governments.

The whole narrative doesn't make sense on a policy level. It doesn't make sense on a procedural level. It doesn't make sense in parliamentary tactics. Maybe it makes sense in internal tactics. Maybe this is a moment of mild instability within the opposition. Maybe we're seeing a situation where, for some reason, there are some of those opposite who aren't that keen on the Leader of the Opposition being able to be given the moment that was given with the MPI. At any rate, the consequences that will occur now are consequences that everybody knew of when they started this. The rest of the speech from the Leader of the Opposition we will have to wait another day for because we all had to listen to the dulcet tones and the extraordinary, soaring rhetoric of the Manager of Opposition Business and the shadow Treasurer.

I say to those opposite: this motion was not our idea. Having a half-hour interruption in the middle of the speech of the Leader of the Opposition is something you might think would be a government tactic, but this one is entirely their own. They can explain afterwards to their colleagues. They can explain afterwards to the Leader of the Opposition why this ridiculous stunt that makes no sense in procedure on an argument that makes no sense in policy was more important than the speech that the Leader of the Opposition was due to give.

See this speech in context