Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

She said, 'We never did this.'! Let me tell you, I had to vote on bills, on lots of legislation, on which we didn't have one minute of debate under Labor—188 bills were guillotined through the Senate. Fifty-three bills in one week were guillotined through the Senate—all amendments and all remaining stages in one vote—many bills without even a single word of debate spoken. The President was very generous to the Labor Party yesterday by giving the Labor Party way more leeway than President Hogg ever did. President Hogg never let us speak for even one minute to argue. Once we were in one of your 188 guillotines we were not allowed to say a single word. You took great pleasure in ramming 188 bills through, using the majority vote that you had with the Greens.

Let me just say that this is an important bill. Everybody in the community knows that this is all about Labor trying to stand in the way of income tax relief for hardworking families. Working Australians are grateful to those crossbench senators who have decided to support the government, to back up the government, in making sure that we can get this very important economic reform through the parliament in a timely fashion.