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

We have established before this parliament, as part of the parliamentary reform, a number of processes for dealing with private members' business motions so that both motions and bills can be voted upon before this House. We have a process whereby we have a Selection Committee in which you, Mr Speaker, play an important role and in which crossbenchers, members of the government and members of the opposition are represented in a way in which the government does not have a majority.

What that Selection Committee does is to provide an opportunity in private members' business greater than ever before for members to have a discussion on issues of concern to their electorates or of concern to the nation and then have votes on them in the House of Representatives. This is a change of practice from what has occurred in the previous 42 parliaments. It has led to a situation whereby, by agreement, we have on Thursdays, in an orderly way, a suspension of standing orders moved by me as Leader of the House and then votes occurring. Those votes occur regardless of what the outcome of the votes will be in terms of the government and the opposition. They are a way in which we have facilitated the engagement in a much greater way, particularly by backbenchers, in the operation of this House. They have enabled us to have some important determinations on specific issues of concern to the electorate or broader issues such as the motion today that has been agreed would be voted upon about wild dogs that was moved by the member for Gippsland.

The very moving of this amendment to my suspension motion, and this amendment being carried, undermines the very integrity of that process. I say to the opposition, and in particular to the Manager of Opposition Business, that the moving of this motion changes the way in which I will operate as the Leader of the House, because this has been done by consensus as part of the reform of the parliament. But, once again, we are seeing that there is no convention and no principle in the operation of this parliament that the opposition are not prepared to undermine and to trash. It is particularly important that we uphold the principles embodied in the parliamentary reform document, which everyone signed up to in the operation of the new House.

Mr Pyne interjecting—

I say to the Manager of Opposition Business, who interjects: what about the way the opposition cut off question time with their relentless moving of suspensions of standing orders? Once again they refuse to engage in proper processes. The Manager of Opposition Business said, somewhat disorderly but he said it nonetheless, that his amendment to my motion should be allowed because this is somehow a distraction for the government from government business. Yet what we see from the opposition, with their relentless negativity, with their refusal and failure to ask a single question yesterday about any policy issue, with their moving of this amendment—

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