Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That all words after “That” be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

(1)

the House reaffirms the right of all members to assert their views on each and every bill that comes before the House;

(2)

paragraph 9 of the motion be omitted so as to prevent a gag on the debate of the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006, which the government is imposing so as to hide the division in its own party on that bill.

Today the opposition is not protecting its rights; it is protecting the rights of every member in this House. Something that government members should understand very clearly when they vote on the motion moved by the Leader of the House is that it is about preventing full debate on bills about which the government is divided, most particularly the Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006, which is excising all of Australia from the migration zone and ensuring that everybody is taken to either Manus or Nauru for processing.

Anybody who reads the newspapers or listens to the radio knows that the government is divided about this bill and that, if there were full debate, a number of government members would express a variety of views on the topic. That is as it should be: members in this House should be entitled to come into the House and to put whatever view they like on behalf of their constituents. Every member of this chamber should have the right to come into the House and put whatever view it is that they believe best represents their constituents and best meets their needs. In moving this motion, the Leader of the House is ensuring that not only opposition members will lose that right but government members will lose that right.

I ask the government members who are sitting there now thinking, ‘What I do at this time in the morning if I see the Leader of the House moving a motion is automatically vote for the motion because it is something to do with the government,’ to be a little more analytical this morning and think a little more clearly about these issues on their own behalf and on behalf of their constituents. If you have a view on any of these bills—and it might not be the migration bill; it might actually be one of the other bills—you are voting to prevent yourself from putting forward that view in this House.

We know what will happen with these time limits, this gag. Basically, what will happen is that the government minister and perhaps some of the most senior government members will get an opportunity to speak but government backbenchers sitting there now—whether it is the member for Greenway, the member for Ryan, the member for Pearce or the member for Kooyong—will not get an opportunity to speak. This motion is guaranteed to ensure you do not get an opportunity to speak. I honestly do not know how you would face your constituents and say: ‘My job is to go into the parliament and vote to make sure I have no role in government decision making. My job is to go into the parliament and be an automatic number for the government and to act like a robot, to act like I am a person without views and deny myself the opportunity to speak.’ That is what you are doing if you support this motion.

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