Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On indulgence, I inform members that progress in the Senate on the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer Safeguards) Bill 2010 is extremely slow. Some might argue it is as slow as a coalition senator. It is progressing in a way which is, in my view, not constructive given that we have had a range of procedural resolutions moved simply to make the end outcome take longer, not to change the end outcome. At this stage we anticipate that the Senate will not conclude the committee stage and third reading until at least the middle of tomorrow. There will then be a time delay required to complete the detailed paperwork on the schedule of amendments.

It is the case that, rather than sit around tomorrow waiting for the Senate to deliberate, it is in the interests of the House that the House be suspended until 12 noon on Monday. The proposed procedural processes, of course, are that the House be suspended until the ringing of the bells but, so that people can make arrangements for this evening and to travel home tomorrow morning, it is best that certainty be given. I thank all members for their patience and cooperation. I look forward to seeing people back in this chamber on Monday to receive the legislation.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just very briefly, I think the last comment from the Leader of the House might have been more tongue-in-cheek than genuine. I am sure he is not looking forward to seeing us back here on Monday. I, of course, am looking forward to seeing you back here on Monday, Mr Speaker, on the other hand.

Obviously the management of the Senate and the House is in the hands of the government. It is disappointing that, yet again, the government has been unable to manage its legislative agenda in a way that would ensure that we could be finished today. I held out a vain hope that the Leader of the House would be able to manage the affairs of this building in such a way that we would finish at five o’clock today but, yet again, I am disappointed by the Leader of the House’s management of the business of the parliament.

Of course, the Senate is doing the job that it is elected to do, which is to scrutinise government legislation and to hold the government to account. If the government chose to do so, it could easily have moved the guillotine motion in the Senate. Obviously it does not believe that it has the numbers to achieve that, and that speaks volumes about the inability of this government to progress its agenda. As we have known for the last five sitting weeks in this parliament, one of the major bugbears of the opposition is the failure of the government to have an agenda or a plan because, as we know, while the ALP is in government the Greens are in power. We are seeing that in the Senate and in the House every day. With those few words I look forward to seeing some of our members on Monday to finish the government’s legislative program for this year.

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The sitting is suspended until the ringing of the bells.