Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Hansard source

Order! Everyone knows my view of this particular session of business and the farce that it has become and the limits placed on the other senators who aren't given the right to speak and explain their position, so I won't restate that. But I will say one thing. The ability to grant leave is in the hands of every single individual senator—I also note, me included, but I think it's inappropriate for me to deny it; it's tempting sometimes. Anyone can be denied leave and I don't have to say who it is. I seek the unanimous consent of the chamber. So, if any one senator decides to, that means this procedure will end. Secondly, once leave is granted, a point of order can't be raised, I'm afraid, unless there's something unparliamentary, Senator Birmingham, because leave has been granted to make a one-minute statement. There are no orders around that.

I would encourage people, though, to remember that the practice has been that senators do allow parties and crossbenchers to state a position—again, in the hands of all 75 other senators—and that has been done in the terms that Senator Birmingham noted: to explain rather than debate, conscious that, if you do debate, you are disallowing other senators from debating what you have asserted, which I think is unfair. This procedure works this way, and it is done by convention, not by standing order. You've finished your contribution, I gather. You have 15 seconds remaining, Senator Hanson-Young.