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

It's well understood why, yesterday, we needed to adopt a new sessional order, because, for the first time in living memory, the crossbench became as big as the opposition. As a result of that new sessional order, we've been having more crossbench questions.

I note that yesterday we had a question from the member for Clark, where he predicted that the crossbench was 'likely to soon exceed' the opposition with more defections. I don't know if he knew what was going to happen today, but it has turned out to be prophetic. What I would say, though, is: be careful what you wish for. You might not necessarily want the people who you're about to get. But today, of all things and of all the issues to decide where your line in the sand is, we had another five members of the opposition decide to defy the shadow cabinet—another five.

I've had a look at the amendments they were voting for. It was the member for Canning, the member for Barker, the member for Longman, the member for Grey and the member for Forrest, all of them defying the shadow cabinet's position. One of the amendments that they decided was a matter of principle was to have a statutory review of customs and excise laws. I really don't think that was the reason they decided. If you want to know the reason—you might notice the member for Canning has been reading a book during the course of question time today. Some people with better eyesight than me have noticed a copy of The Art of War on his desk.

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