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

Maybe I'll ask more politely so it will be clear to you that it wasn't an instruction, but let's just say the hours this Senate has worked so far this week do not facilitate the courtesy and goodwill that ordinarily all senators would function with. And, equally, it is quite provocative when the minister, unfortunately, continues with the pattern of behaviour he's demonstrated in a range of other policy areas where he is very, very selective with the information that he provides.

I can remind senators here, of course, of the complaints of people like Catholic Education. What have they said about this minister? 'He's not up-front.' How was he with this amendment? 'He was not up-front.' He was trying to con this chamber into a procedure where he knows that it's on the basis of cooperation that we move on to government business once we finish non-controversial legislation. And, indeed, Senators, the Procedure Committee didn't meet this week because it was diverted by this government's procedures. And, indeed, the Procedure Committee, if it was functioning effectively, would continue to deal with matters that complicate or compromise the efficiency of this chamber. I remember earlier this week we spent about, I think, an hour and 20 minutes in formal motions. I do have some sympathy and, indeed, empathy with the government that there are elements of the procedures in this chamber that make it very difficult to consider government business. But what this opposition will not do after the stunt performed yesterday and today is cooperate on that matter. You cannot expect the opposition to cooperate in processes to establish effective movement of legislation or government business when you perform stunts like that which just occurred.

So, we will move, after the veterans' affairs bill, to the list—it will be an even longer list, I suspect, next week—of non-controversial legislation. But senators should understand that this part of the program to deal with non-controversial legislation is one built around cooperation amongst senators and a process behind the scenes outside the chamber that lets us all understand those bills that we may or may not have an issue on. This section of the program coincides with when sensible senators are getting an opportunity to go and have something to eat in what will potentially be a very long day if we look at the rest of the sitting week so far—and indeed, Mr President, I think I'm still awaiting your advice on whether the government is equally bound by the approach on suspensions of standing orders in terms of their ability to rearrange the program. But it's a level of cooperation that is unlikely to continue. The government's capacity to rearrange the program and to rely on cooperation to deal with noncontroversial legislation will not automatically occur, and we will complain if the government seeks, in a somewhat shifty way, to replace the motion that we've circulated with another one which is materially different.

Mr President, I could insist that their amendment be circulated. I think it's quite inappropriate that it wasn't—oh, it has been? Very good. So senators can now see the difference I'm complaining about, can understand why, rather than proceeding with Senator Wong's motion, the government did it differently themselves, and can understand that the government's trying to pull the wool over the eyes of senators procedurally again and revert back to what Senator Birmingham just described as 'standard part (b)'. Well, we're not on board for standard part (b), Senator Birmingham, and we're not on board for a range of things in relation to how this Senate usually cooperates. We will not allow stunts like the ones that occurred yesterday and today to become the regular pattern and routine of this place.

Honourable senators interjecting—

Indeed, as I can hear now, we are still facing confusion about what really is before us and how we're going to proceed. Senator Birmingham said that, if we want to vote separately on part (b), we can do that. Indeed, I think we should. I think it's important to highlight that the government shouldn't be able to sneak in a mechanism that's generally done by cooperation across the chamber. I think we'll make that point on many, many things in the days ahead, because the opposition's cooperation, the things that ordinarily allow for this parliament to function, should not be taken for granted when we had, as I've said before, the Leader of the Government sitting here directing traffic, with five minutes here; I'm surprised he didn't go down to two minutes there and four minutes here. It was incredible.

So what did we see earlier about the brave new Senate? I'll be more polite than perhaps some of the interjections were at the time, but essentially what we saw was Pauline Hanson's One Nation coming to the Leader of the Government in the Senate and saying: 'What is it we do? How are we proceeding? What are we supposed to do?' We saw CA come over—in fact, I saw worse than that this morning. I saw the Leader of the Government in the Senate not even get out of his seat. Poor Senator Patrick was left bending over to him trying to clarify even what is meant to occur. The body language in this place has become unbelievable. I don't know why Senator Cormann doesn't even understand the civil courtesy of just getting up out of his seat to talk to one of his colleagues, particularly one he's really reliant upon, because it's these deals that determine traffic in this place now—these deals, as we saw, that they refused to outline. They refused to describe what is the arrangement about who's allowed to speak here—which senators are allowed to speak in this place. Senator Cormann refused to even clarify what the arrangement was, so party leaders had no idea. 'Do I have five minutes? Do I have 15? Oops, it was meant to have been 15.' Then Senator Cormann glibly tries to backtrack and says, 'Well, actually, we'll give you 15.' But it wasn't on the basis of what the arrangement was meant to be. He runs some glib line: 'Oh, Senator Wong was just so entertaining!' How patronising. That is extraordinarily patronising.

But, as I said, Senator Cormann now thinks he's in control. He now thinks that because he succeeded with his dummy spit he can do extraordinary things. We will take every opportunity to highlight each and every one of those extraordinary things. If that means highlighting that Senator Birmingham is once again practising sleight of hand, that the motion he's moving is actually materially different to what he's suggesting, we will force it to be circulated in the chamber. We will force him to concede, 'Oops, there is this difference that I didn't describe,' and we will force the Senate to deal with those issues separately. I'm not allowing the government to co-opt opposition motions. I'm not foolish enough to not identify that there is a material difference between them. And Senator Birmingham should know better. He thinks—