Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

on indulgence—Thanks very much, Acting Deputy Speaker, and thanks to the member for Corangamite. I will only be a moment. I just thought it was important to give members an update, at the earliest opportunity, on likely finishing times. I know, at this time of year, there are many electorate events that people need to know if they can get back to or not.

The Senate have now concluded their deliberations on the final piece of legislation we've been waiting on. That will come across to us as a message. Realistically, I don't expect we will get it before question time, but we will certainly have it sometime after question time today. We've already negated the adjournment. It is a reasonable expectation that between 5 pm and 6 pm today we will have concluded all consideration of government business for the day.

With the normal warning that I always give people to always presume you are here on the Friday, I can let you know the chances of that are as close to zero as I can imagine. Something very, very wrong would have to occur, which I certainly can't see.

We're not waiting on anything further from the Senate, so members should work on the basis that sittings today will conclude at about the ordinary time that members would normally expect. Thank you very much.