Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration) Share this | Hansard source

President, I genuinely felt for you yesterday as you were sitting next to our Governor-General for the length of her address and you were in such an invidious position as to what you could do in that situation. I genuinely felt for you, and, in speaking on this matter, I'd like to make that point, and I think that point should be made.

The second point I'd like to make is that, to some extent, it should be irrelevant as to what the issue is. The standing orders are the standing orders, and the standing orders should be blind as to what the issue is. If anything, the more vexed, the more difficult, the more problematic the issue—and we've seen the emotion that this issue can generate—the more we should cling to the standing orders as providing structure. I'm going to give you some flattery here, Senator Wong. Senator Wong has often used an evocative term that has stayed with me—there should be guardrails in relation to the debate we conduct in this place. There must be guardrails around that debate. One of those guardrails is the standing orders. It should not matter what the issue is.

The other point I'd like to make through you, President, is that Senator Waters managed to give quite a passionate contribution to this debate, but she managed to do that without breaching the standing orders—without using props, and showing respect and due regard with respect to the sensitivity of the debate and the issues. She managed to do that entirely within the standing orders, and I recognise that. In relation to the responsibility of leaders, I would just like to make this point: I don't think it just falls upon Senator Wong, Senator Cash, Senator Gallagher, Senator Waters and Senator McKenzie to be the ones who must keep us in line as senators. I think it's an obligation each and every one of us has. It's an obligation of each and every one of us. When we discuss matters such as this, we shouldn't just be looking at our leaders. We should be looking at our own obligations to this institution as stewards and custodians of this institution, and I think that's an extremely important point to make.

Lastly, in relation to Senator Gallagher's contribution about whether or not the motion as it was originally presented deals adequately with this matter, if you're not going to trigger standing order 203 in relation to such an egregious breach on the first day of convening the parliament, when we had the Governor-General, the Chief Justice and our colleagues from the other place, when are you going to use standing order 203? If you don't use standing order 203 in these circumstances, aren't you just inviting a repeat, another breach, at the next opportunity? When would you actually invoke standing order 203? I really do commend the amendments proposed to the Senate by Senator Cash, and I think we all need to double-down in terms of our responsibility to comply with the standing orders and conventions of this place, even more so when we're dealing with extremely emotional and passionate issues.