Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

What hypocrisy, what a whole lot of crocodile tears from the Labor Party. I do want to debate this bill. I have some concerns regarding the amendments that I want to explore with the Minister for Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. As Senator Ludwig has indicated, and I have said this in my speech on the second reading, I do have some concerns, to a degree, about the constricted nature of the Senate committee inquiry. The Labor Party’s principal spokesman was not available on the day, otherwise we would have had a little extra time.

I want to get on and debate it now. Senator Ludwig has spent 18 minutes waffling, talking about Cornelia Rau and other people—nothing to do with this—and holding us up from getting on with the bill. I have taken, I think, 30 seconds. I am going to stop now because I want to get on and actually debate the bill in whatever time is available. There are a number of things that need to be addressed and the minister needs to explain those to us. We want her to explain them to us but, for as long as we carry on with this sort of ridiculous debate, we will not get to the bill and give it the sort of scrutiny that it deserves.