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

I seek leave to make a statement of no more than two minutes.

Leave granted.

I find this really bizarre. We have a bill that has the support of the Senate. This is something that I think is an important piece of work, and I thank the Treasurer and the finance minister for their work on this. We haven't even started debating this bill. It is so bizarre to have a Greens party with the balance of power in this place feel the need to guillotine a bill before it even starts debate. It's not like the government has a huge agenda to bring through this place over the next three weeks. It's very bare in terms of legislation, so let's take a few days actually look at this.

I think there are some very important elements of this bill that warrant scrutiny. There are questions that need to be answered, and I say this from a position of actually supporting this bill. I do think these are important changes to our superannuation system. I do think we've seen a misuse of superannuation by people with extraordinary balances that the average Australian could only ever dream of amassing. But we have a government that throws sand in the gears Senate, amends every motion to slow things down and really doesn't have a legislative agenda the moment guillotining a bill in a day.

I think the Greens have some serious questions to answer here. Why do you feel the need to guillotine a bill without debate, given that we know it has support and it will pass? And that is after saying no to a Senate inquiry on this bill. It's farcical. This is the house of review. We should be able to actually look at legislation, look at it through a Senate inquiry, debate it in this place and then vote on behalf of our state or territory and whether we think it aligns with the people we were sent here to represent.