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

Thank you, Mr President. As I indicated, I was happy to deal with that issue as either a further clarification or, indeed, debating the motion. I'm happy to deal with my concerns about what's before us at the moment, which is essentially an amendment moved by the government instead of the amendment that the opposition circulated that was described by the minister—I'll be careful with my language here; we're all tired—in a way which was not full and frank in terms of the differences between the two positions that have been put forward.

Part (b) is a procedural mechanism that in the past has been agreed by the Senate to allow for more government business time if we finish non-controversial legislation. Again, with this debate which we've moved into, the 20 minutes that's allowable for senators to debate a motion in relation to business, the issue here is to highlight that there are a range of mechanisms by which this Senate works that involve cooperation and sleight of hand should not be part of it.

This is a message to CA as well: if we allow ministers to just introduce amendments without circulating them, to pretend they're the same as the ones that have been circulated by the opposition and for their own purposes remove one element—and I think it's pretty clear to all parties here that the way in which the opposition would ordinarily cooperate with the government of the day to facilitate business is a time that is passed—you will feel the burden of that in relation to pairing, in relation to procedure, in relation to how bills progress and in relation to routine issues around which bills are considered non-controversial. This is the territory that this government has taken us into today and this is the issue that CA in particular or, indeed, Pauline Hanson's One Nation should understand. This Senate usually functions effectively as a house of review, and this is a very important principle that they have compromised.

So we have a long list—indeed, a very long list—of non-controversial legislation that the government would like to be able to progress this week and next week. And, before yesterday and today, the opposition was happy to cooperate and ensure that that could occur. When Minister Birmingham referred to removing aged care, that was because it became apparent—and I think it was actually Senator Leyonhjelm, rather than the opposition, who had the issue on that one. And Senator Leyonhjelm has arranged for aged care not to proceed as non-controversial legislation. We then propose that it's a fairly lengthy list and that some of the critical bills that really do need to proceed here—the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Veteran-centric Reforms No. 2) Bill 2018 and the Health Legislation Amendment (Improved Medicare Compliance and Other Measures) Bill 2018—were really matters that we needed to guarantee be dealt with during non-controversial legislation. The rest of them, though—

Senator Bushby interjecting—

I'm sorry, Senator; what was that?