Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak briefly in relation to your statement. I start at the outset by indicating that we appreciate that you have taken your responsibilities in this office as encompassing some guardianship of this institution, and we respect and value that. We endorse, in particular, the point you make:

The ability to scrutinise the executive and participate in legislative activity is unarguably even more critical in times of crisis due to the extraordinary powers being delegated, granted and exercised by officials and the executive.

Put simply, parliamentary democracy needs a parliament. It's not an optional extra.

Ceding untrammelled power to the executive is not who we are, and it's also risky. So I place on record our disappointment and concern as to some of how we have got here and, in particular, the way in which Mr Morrison sidelined a working group which was working towards resolving how it would be that this parliament could meet safely. As you might recall, the presiding officers, government and opposition managers of business and chief medical officers were meeting to ensure this was done collaboratively, and, regrettably, the Prime Minister unilaterally commissioned advice and sidelined the working group.

The parliament and the executive are separate institutions, and we each have a separate and unique responsibility within our system of government. The executive ought not and cannot interfere with the parliament. Given this, and in light of your statement, the opposition invites the presiding officers to consider for the purposes of future sittings the merit of obtaining independent medical advice to enable the parliament to do its job, and we again reiterate that the Procedure Committee process, by which aspects of the parliament for remote attendance has been agreed, demonstrates the capacity of this parliament to act collaboratively in response to that advice. As I said, Mr President, we thank you for your statement and again acknowledge your guardianship of this institution at these times.