Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Hansard source

The motion that is before the Senate says that if we have not transacted the business by midnight tonight we will be commencing sitting again tomorrow at 9.30 am. The reason for that—and plenty of notice has been given of this—is that we as a government believe that the Northern Territory legislation, the water legislation and some bills relating to APEC need to be transacted by the end of this week. That was in fact discussed with leaders and whips earlier on. We had in fact wanted the citizenship bill to be part of that as well, but we removed that from the list of bills that we were requesting to have Senate consideration concluded on by the end of this week.

Yesterday, I was asked by journalists some questions in relation to the government’s plan. The government’s plan, as indicated quite some time ago, is to have these bills on the list transacted by the time that we conclude this particular sitting fortnight. It had come to my attention—and I will not say through which sources—that certain people were anxious for the government to apply the guillotine so that they could campaign on the basis of the government guillotining legislation through this place and treating it with contempt. There would then only be the one party that could save the Senate from this heinous activity of legislation being guillotined. All I ask senators to do is to give consideration to the way in which they conduct themselves during this debate. In general terms, what Senator Brown said was right. But I would not say that all senators have conducted themselves in an appropriate manner during this debate, because it has dragged out.

It is interesting that in the 106 years of this Senate since Federation, in 1901, only 29 bills have ever been considered for more than 20 hours. In those 106 years, 29 bills have taken more than 20 hours. In almost half—14 out of those 29 bills that have taken 20 hours or more—and in all that time and in-depth discussion, guess which government provided that time to the Australian Senate? The Howard government. That is a very good and very proud record. But, of course, when the Howard government says: ‘This is important legislation. We might recall parliament to give it more time to consider it,’ it is condemned by only one party. Guess who? The Greens. And we were told at that time, ‘There’s no need to recall the parliament early; the parliament is going to be sitting anyway. We can transact it during that time.’ Guess what happens? When we then do not recall parliament early and deal with it at the time suggested, there is a motion to defer its consideration until October.