David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

Perfect. Thank you. This just exposes what a farce this process is today. There's the speakers list. We've got 20 senators who aren't getting a say on our biggest changes to environmental laws in decades. We've got senators who haven't even been able to get amendments drafted to this. I've put in 22 amendments for drafting; I've had six back, despite chasing up the government since Friday about resourcing for drafters. This just doesn't seem to cut it.

This is important. We should get it right, and yet here we are ramming it through in the space of hours rather than actually providing some debate, allowing senators who you may or may not agree with to have their say on environmental law reform and then having a committee stage where you can actually ask some clarifying questions to find out what the details are. We're still scrambling to understand what these changes actually mean. Some of them are incredibly welcome, but, as Senator Cash often reminds us, the devil is in the detail. (Time expired)