Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I am going through why the opposition was so opposed to Friday sittings, because I am surprised that the opposition has been so opposed to enhancing the status of private members’ business. Indeed, the House of Representatives Practice makes it very clear that it is oppositions that benefit from private members’ business. Indeed, on page 80 it says:

While all private Members are to some extent involved in such functions as petitions, grievances, questions, and participation in committee work, the effective performance of the functions listed above is largely dependent on a vigilant, industrious and organised Opposition. Members supporting the Government are able to play an effective part in this parliamentary process but the Opposition may be expected to do so and to articulate, for example, the views of various groups within the community.

That is the role of private members’ business. Private members’ business gives an opportunity for members of the opposition executive, opposition backbench and government backbench to move private members’ bills. Indeed, those on this side of the House now, when in opposition, moved a number of private members’ bills. I myself moved a bill which led to the cap of 80 movements on Sydney airport. I moved a bill that we ratify Kyoto. I moved a bill stopping exploration on the Great Barrier Reef. I moved a bill about same-sex superannuation entitlements. These are the opportunities that from opposition you can take up.

I want to address some of the myths that are here. One is the issue of ministers and their participation in private members’ business. The very purpose of private members’ business is that it is the one area of parliamentary debate which is not led by the executive, in which the executive do not participate. The former Prime Minister and those people who were ministers over on that side of the House did not participate in any of the private members’ business during the entire 12 years that they were in government—not for one minute did they participate in debate; not for one minute did they sit in the chamber and listen to that debate. The other issue that characterises private members’ business is that you do not have divisions. That is what private members’ business does. Private members’ business is an opportunity for people to raise issues, to lift up the profile of issues of concern either to their electorate or to the nation. We had absolute nonsense from those opposite about these very issues.

There was another statement made by the coalition frontbenchers, who engaged in an extraordinary disruption of the parliament, the most serious of which was the defiance of the Speaker. I have been in this chamber for 12 years. I never once saw a member of the former opposition—and there were over 170 asked to leave under standing order 94(a)—basically say, ‘No, I’m not going.’ That is what we saw during that Friday sitting. At the same time, we saw an abuse of the Deputy Speaker in particular when she was in the chamber which was, quite frankly, a disgrace. It brought this parliament into disrepute. We should never forget that the kids in schools, who look towards this parliament, expect some dignity. But, since then, we have had the shadow minister for foreign affairs go on the Insiders program on 24 February. There was no apology but a statement that disorderly conduct on Fridays would continue as a premeditated strategy—an extraordinary position!

The fact is that these standing orders were debated in this House for some 15½ hours, beating the previous record from 1969 by an hour and a half. We said that we would not gag the debate. We had a number of speakers. The opposition had 28 speakers in a row, talking to themselves about the debate that was going on. Indeed, you had the extraordinary position that the member for Fisher, at 12.39 am in the debate, stated:

I think it is unfortunate that, in this debate, we started with 15 minutes and then it was cut to five minutes and now it has been cut to three minutes. I also think it is unfortunate that here we are at 20 to one in the morning ...

Well, we were not gagging them; they were gagging themselves. They had a speaking list on which they put every single one of their members and then they made them all speak, but they realised when it was not being gagged that they would have to cut their own speaking list down. So they gagged their own members—told them they could speak for five minutes and then told them they could speak for only three minutes. It is extraordinary that that is the case. But they did not tell each other, obviously, because the member for Barker last night in the adjournment debate said:

We have had three disasters already. On the first day of sitting we sat until two o’clock in the morning...

That was because members of the opposition—who now say they want to do the same thing—just talked and talked among themselves, in spite of the fact that twice yesterday in this chamber I said I would table the standing orders in order for them to be on notice and debated properly and in spite of the fact that the Leader of the Opposition was notified last Friday in writing of what the changes would be. Those changes do nothing more and nothing less than transfer Friday sittings through to Monday night. So it is extraordinary that they have been prepared to go to this length.

We know that there is a problem when it comes to negotiating good outcomes because, after the first suspension during the last sitting, I asked the Leader of the Opposition whether there was going to be further disruptive behaviour and he indicated there would not be. I am not sure whether that was a breach of faith or whether he simply could not control the troops on his own side. It is very interesting that the people who were actually thrown out were not the Leader of the Opposition or the Manager of Opposition Business in the House; it was the poor old member for Cowper. He got the hospital pass: ‘Here you go, buddy. Up you go. You do the job.’ The member for Moncrieff, who probably does not know better, was the first member of a serious political party to be marched out of the chamber.

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