Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President. I again highlight the fact that all the Liberal Party has to contribute to this debate is process, points of order and delay. Do you know what we are debating? We have already debated this morning to extend the hours, which the Liberal Party opposed, in order to ensure that we can bring into this parliament the clean energy bills—the bills that were passed in the House of Representatives half an hour ago. We have given the Liberal opposition months of warning about these bills. The time frame was made public months ago and the opposition have known exactly the plan for bringing them before the parliament. We have scheduled an extra week of the parliament to facilitate debate on the bills. The procedure and the time frame have all been laid out. The Liberal Party's position is that they oppose everything. They do not have anything to contribute but they are going to try to prevent the parliament debating these bills. They are continuing their policy of trying to prevent this parliament dealing with legislation. The parliament saw an outrageous filibuster on the student services legislation as senator after senator came in not to debate amendments, not to debate the subject matter, but to delay the Senate dealing with it. We have had more MPIs moved by this opposition than any other opposition in the history of the parliament. We have had less legislative time than any other government because the Liberal opposition have taken every opportunity to delay the legislative program.

Today we have a debate about process, as the opposition demonstrate once again that all they have is the ability to oppose. All they have is negativity and opposition but they have nothing to say about policy, nothing to say about the great debates that this country is engaged in. The Labor government make it clear that we are facilitating debate on these bills. We are allowing the Senate the time needed to enable all senators to debate these bills. The reason we have to move these procedural motions is to ensure that that debate occurs. We will move more motions to facilitate debate. We made an offer to the opposition to have a cooperative approach on this, and that was knocked back. I made the offer to Senator Abetz to allow every senator to make a proper contribution to the debate. But they have not agreed to that, and they have rejected that approach. They have been told by their leader, Mr Abbott, to oppose, oppose, oppose; disrupt, disrupt, disrupt. They have been told to contribute nothing but opposition to the debate. The government will continue to pursue the procedures that allow us to facilitate proper debate in the Senate, and the Liberal opposition have to decide whether they have anything constructive to contribute to the debate. (Time expired)