Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I indicate that the opposition will not be supporting Senator Fielding’s amendment. Also, whilst I am on my feet, in response to Senator Brown in relation to the debate earlier, which does overflow into this debate, Senator Brown indicated that we opposed yesterday the restructure of the Privileges Committee by not inserting a crossbench member. We did not oppose that per se. We opposed the notion of committee membership being decided like that through a notice of motion. Committee memberships or the restructure of committees should be decided by the Procedures Committee looking at the whole gamut of committees and the membership of committees.

Also, Senator Brown alluded to the fact that the committee should be more representative. If Senator Brown looks at the committee membership now, there are four Labor members on the Privileges Committee and three coalition members. If we looked at proportional representation on that committee, it should be 2.9 Labor, 3.4 coalition and 0.6 of a crossbench member. These are the reasons we need to discuss these matters more fully in the Procedures Committee.

Finally, I indicate that Senator Brown also mentioned in the debate previously that Senator Abetz, in effect, voted at the last division of the Privileges Committee back in June. That is not correct. Senator Abetz did not vote.