Andrew Robb (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Coalition Policy Development Committee) Share this | Hansard source

You could do it during the day the next day. You could have made it obvious to people rather than burying it. It was not mentioned in the budget papers, of course—no amount of money was mentioned. You snuck it in in the depths of the night when everyone was distracted. Why was it done this way, when in the past it has been a matter of a separate bill that the parliament could discuss in a substantive way? Can the minister explain why it was contained in a cognate debate, which does not allow for substantive debate or substantive amendments? Does the government really have the discretionary authority to alter the terms of the cognate debate, given that I have corresponded with Minister Albanese, with a copy to you—and I have yet to receive a response—about the opportunity to discuss that matter in a substantive way?

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