Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Abetz and I do not want to interrupt his line of questioning, but I do have a question for the parliamentary secretary. Parliamentary Secretary, you would be conscious that workplace relations and workplace health and safety are not areas of policy that I closely follow, but I have been sitting in my office all afternoon watching this debate today and I have been very interested—and I know a lot of my colleagues have been interested as well. I have been following the questions Senator Abetz has been putting to you and the answers you have given. The debate, I think, has been very useful in clarifying many of the issues on this bill and, I might say, even a little more broadly.

This is what I want to put to the parliamentary secretary: this is a debate which I would like to continue to follow. I am conscious that Senator Abetz has some other amendments to move which I think may well attract majority support in this chamber. But, Parliamentary Secretary, you are aware that tonight, in the 40 minutes left to us, we have to deal with the Corporations (Fees) Amendment Bill, the Auditor-General Amendment Bill, the Personal Property Securities Amendment (Registration Commencement) Bill, the Competition and Consumer Amendment Bill (No.1) and the Broadcasting Services Amendment (Review of Future Uses of Broadcasting Services Bands Spectrum) Bill. We have to do that in a very limited period of time. I do not want to curtail this debate because, as I say, it is interesting. Good considered answers are being given, if I may complement the parliamentary secretary, although they are not always fulsome. I would like to follow this debate further. I think there is a lot of good coming out of it. In spite of the derision of some members on the government side, a lot of people listen to these debates on the radio. I think the people of Australia would like to hear this debate go through to its conclusion.

We have Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday set aside for parliamentary sittings. That is something the Senate agreed upon nine months ago and it has not been changed. I am not aware of what is on the agenda for those three days. In fact, I have tried to find out but the government seems to have no legislation planned for the days set aside. So my question to the parliamentary secretary is: would you be prepared to come back on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday so we can complete the debate on this bill, so that I and other senators who are following this very closely could get to a conclusion and so that Senator Abetz could move his amendments, which I believe will attract majority support in the chamber?

I emphasise that there are three days set out next week and as far as I am aware there are no listed agenda items from the government manager—but then the government manager is not terribly good at organising the chamber. I do not want to raise issues but it would seem like a good opportunity with an important bill before us, a bill which I think demands very good debate. Unfortunately, in the last three or four weeks we have seen the most complex legislation this parliament has seen for a decade—that is, the 18 carbon tax bills—rammed through this Senate without sufficient debate. Some bills were not even mentioned. This week we have had Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday—