Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

I agree with Senator Gallagher, Senator Cameron and Senator Di Natale that this exercise is a farce. Senator Fifield stood up and sought to explain what he described as a shared process. My message to the crossbench here is that shared processes only work until you exhaust your friends. Let me remind senators of some of the exhaustion that has previously occurred in this place. Senator Fifield said that this is an organic process. Senators need to remember the organic process that I described as a gag by attrition, which was the electoral reform matters. Senators should recall the electoral reform matters that enabled this government to call a double dissolution election where they barely referred to the significant legislation that they thought was required—and it has now taken close to five months to bring that forward to the Senate.

One senator said to me: why would you bother speaking on the suspension debate? The response I gave them was to point out in this hours motion the bottom line, which says that Senator Brandis is also to move that the question be now put. At 7.20 pm the opposition were informed that when we returned from the dinner break at 7.30 pm there would be an hours motion to be debated, so with 10-minutes notice the government brought forward a motion and expected no debate on it at all. That is what would have happened if Senator Brandis had been given leave to move the motion. Instead, he was forced to seek to suspend the standing orders so that we would have a mere half an hour to address this hours motion. Some of that time should be addressed to the crossbench because they need to understand what they are doing, because the next time it happens it will be one of them carved off for one reason or another because the shared responsibility that Senator Fifield refers to will not involve them on that occasion. So piece by piece process in this place is being destroyed.

The main senator I direct this point to is Senator Xenophon because I heard Senator Xenophon recently describe his distinction between a process gag and a content gag. As Senator Di Natale made the point, Senator Xenophon in the past has upheld a range of important process issues in this chamber but somehow he has been convinced that there is this niche distinction between process and content. Someone describe to me how fair process is encapsulated in 10-minutes notice of a motion that includes closure—I move: 'That the question be now put.' That is not fair process under any consideration.

Again, if this opposition had not denied Senator Brandis leave then there would have been no discussion of how this Senate now operates. How we operate is 10-minutes notice from the government that a deal has been stitched together and we are going to continue debate in this fashion. Let us look at what that continuation also means. It means second readers until we are all exhausted. If you are unfortunate to be lower down on the list, you might be unlucky to be giving your speech at midnight or 1 am. It could be 1 am when you are giving your speech and who knows what time you started in the morning. If you are like me and you like to spend as much time at home with your family as possible, you might have gotten up at 4 am to come to this place.