Robert Ray (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Allison has—so that is the appropriate time to debate this issue. It will be debated as an issue, I assume with a conscience vote. The one difficulty will be gathering enough time to do so; I concede that. It is not easy in general business to bring any of these things to a resolution, as we will find out later today with the ACT self-government bill. It is very difficult to do so. There was a bit of grumpiness initially from Senator Brown, who wanted to know who objected, who declared this not formal. We are saying it was us, and we are not apologising for it. We are not going to apologise for it, because it is a major issue that cannot be just voted on, yes or no. There is subtlety of positions to be explained on all sides. We will have an opportunity when Senator Allison’s legislation comes in to discuss it—maybe not to resolve it, but to discuss it. That is the appropriate time. Therefore, this cannot even be treated as a matter of urgency and we should defeat Senator’s Brown’s motion on this occasion.