Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

What did you have when you were in government? You had nothing. You had nothing and made no attempt whatsoever to consider this issue. We have also enacted reforms to the Privileges Committee to ensure that it has a broader remit.

One thing the opposition are objecting to, and objecting to very vociferously, is the change in sitting arrangements. They are demanding more matters of public importance debates. They are suggesting that because we are moving private members’ business to Fridays there should be a matter of public importance on Mondays. In other words, when they were in government, for nearly 12 years, they were happy to allow the opposition to have three matters of public importance debates per week, but now they claim they are entitled to four MPI debates a week. Under this proposal from the government, there will be more question times than the average that applied over the course of the Howard government.

The arrangements that are proposed with respect to divisions and quorums that will apply on a Friday are precisely the same arrangements that were put in place by the former government, with the support of the then opposition, with respect to the 6.30 pm to 8 pm period on ordinary sitting days in order to facilitate sitting through dinner. They are precisely the same arrangements to defer quorum counts and to defer divisions for the convenience of the House. So, apparently, an arrangement that currently applies, at their instigation with our support, between 6.30 and 8.30 on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday is okay, but the same arrangement is not okay on Friday.

The logic that applies to the proposal we put forward for sittings on Fridays is the same logic that applied with respect to the creation of the Main Committee, which we in opposition also supported and which has proved a valuable mechanism for this parliament. We are putting forward a proposal that will mean more debate on government business and will mean less guillotining of important legislation. It will mean more opportunity for members of the opposition to debate government legislation than would otherwise be the case. And it will mean more opportunities for private members—whether they are government, opposition or crossbench members—to debate issues that they wish to raise in private members’ business, whether it is through the grievance debate, private members’ motions or 90-second statements.

Having been a backbencher briefly a few years ago, I am conscious of the fact that opportunities are fairly limited for backbenchers to get up in this parliament and speak on issues of concern, particularly to their own electorates, and on issues that they may not get an opportunity to deal with through legislation. Sometimes you have to wait quite a while to get an opportunity to get up and speak. Anything that expands the opportunity for ordinary members of parliament to make a contribution like that is a good thing.

I think it is worth scrutinising the content of the argument put forward by the opposition as to why these changes should not proceed. They are implying that somehow the amount of notice of the fine print, the detail of the proposals, they have received is inadequate. These are the same people who brought forward major legislation of far greater significance to the Australian people—like the Tampa legislation and like the Northern Territory intervention legislation—without any kind of serious notice to the parliament. The usual arrangement is that a bill is introduced one week and then formally debated the following week. The opposition gets an opportunity in the intervening period to consider that piece of legislation and form a view about whether it will vote for it. I can recall many times in opposition where that usual arrangement was breached by the former government.

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