Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

The amendment being proposed is a fundamental change that essentially is seeking to amend the motion, the result of which could be achieved by simply defeating the motion if the government wished to. The Senate has already twice expressed its will, in terms of government attempts to reorder business in relation to this bill, and the Senate has twice rejected the government's attempts. There is precedence in relation to a ruling that, where the Senate has clearly expressed its will on more than one occasion, a motion will not be taken again. This is a rather unique attempt at trying to do the same thing yet again, but it is nonetheless another attempt at doing so. I believe the amendment should be ruled out of order, such that the motion as put be considered, rather than us dealing with what appears to be an endless time-wasting exercise by the government to prevent consideration of its own bills.