Roger Price (Chifley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise, firstly, to endorse the remarks of the Manager of Opposition Business in the House. I observe, like he did, that normal practice is of course that these changes to standing orders, which affect every member of this place, are moved by the Leader of the House or, in his absence, the Deputy Leader of the House. There is nothing particularly wrong with a minister introducing these changes. However, one does assume that he would at least explain to the House what the changes were. I find it a tad ironic that he took a point of order on relevance about changes to standing orders that he did not understand or was unable to explain to the House. Be that as it may, these are a minor but significant change because they allow what is effectively a private members’ Monday in the Main Committee to parallel what is in the chamber should the legislative load be such that government bills can be debated on that sitting Monday. Priority of course is given to private members’ business.

We have seen increasing changes to what is actually being done in the Main Committee. This enhances the role and the importance of the Main Committee. Like the Manager of Opposition Business, I certainly hope that the government has a legislative program which in fact would enable the Main Committee to be fully utilised and afford members the opportunity to debate legislation. The minister at the table said that he wanted to have a debate on industrial relations. I was wondering, for my own edification, when the new legislation that he has announced will come in and when we will have that opportunity to debate those changes. Will he allow a full debate without it being truncated?

Question agreed to.

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