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

They come in here and they refuse to debate the economy. They come in here and every day at 10 minutes to three they move a suspension, because this is the first opposition that have chosen not to even try to hold the executive to account. That is the purpose of question time. The purpose is to come in here and ask questions of the executive about the functioning of the government. But those opposite have given up on that. Perhaps Play School was not on today, because the Leader of the Opposition was 10 minutes late in his motion for suspension. And they are not fair dinkum, because they did not even ask for leave to move a motion. They just went straight to the moving of a suspension and, then, between the mover and the seconder of the motion, neither of them addressed why the suspension should occur.

There are two fundamental reasons that the suspension should not occur. The first is that today is budget day. Today is the day when Australians want to know about the economic future of this country. They want to know about employment settings and they want to know about how the economy will be set for this year and years into the future. They want to debate those issues.

Mr Morrison interjecting—

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