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

You are quite right to interject, Senator McGauran, just in case people could not pick up who that might be—of course, it was the Australian Greens. And now, we have said, ‘We’ll give the Senate a whole extra day if they need it to consider this legislation,’ but I hear Senator Brown in the media saying he needs to get back to his electorate. Sometimes in life you have to make a decision about what is more important, and we believe that protecting the children and women in particular of these Indigenous communities is vitally important. We also believe it is vitally important for the environment that we get this water legislation through, which has been out and about for discussion and consultation for months. There is some machinery legislation to deal with the APEC conference that is happening very shortly—I think there is unanimity in the parliament in relation to that legislation. That is all we are asking for. We are saying that, if the Senate cannot curtail the debate by midnight tonight, then we as a government are willing to sit an extra day and, if we have to keep sitting, we will then consider the consequences.

The history of the Howard government has been to allow exhaustive debate and, as I indicated, out of those 29 bills that have taken more than 20 hours, nearly half—14 of them—have been bills introduced by the Howard government. Only 29 bills have gone over 20 hours in this place in 106 years, and guess how much time we have already clocked up on this Indigenous legislation for the Northern Territory? Fifteen hours and 17 minutes. So, by the close of today, we will have clicked over the 20-hour mark in relation to this legislation. Then the tally will be 30 bills and exactly half of them, 15, will have been under the Howard government. It shows that we have never taken this place for granted. When we seek to recall parliament early to give it more time we are condemned by the Australian Greens. When we want to give it more time on a Friday, to have an extra day of sitting to consider bills, we are condemned as well. It is the typical, cynical approach of the Australian Greens: you’re damned if you do; you’re damned if you don’t. There will always be opposition manufactured for the sake of opposition so that you can get a cheap headline. I commend the motion to the Senate.

Question agreed to.