Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I think the Leader of the House says it all where he just shakes his head menacingly and says, 'But we don't want amendments.' The Leader of the House will have to deal with the fact that, as arrogantly as he wants to treat the parliament, as arrogantly as some of those who sit beside him on the front bench might want to treat the parliament, when you continue to have your key message being that you will not answer questions, your key message being that you will shut down debate, your key message being that dissenting voices are not merely to be objected to but are to be completely silenced, the word does get out. People will recognise fairly quickly the level of arrogance which is inherent in the resolution before us. It is a level of arrogance which has been willing to see people who have their guests here for first speeches now being told that they are going to have to go through this debate and the division before the courtesies of a first speech are able to be given.

I would have thought the Leader of the House, of all people, would be showing a level of respect to people making their first speech. I would have thought the Leader of the House, of all people, would act differently. He has something of a reputation for trying to garner goodwill amongst his colleagues, as Madam Speaker is all too well aware of, and has done that over the years. But now he makes the insult, where the offer was made to delay this till after the first speeches, to decide that we are going to press ahead with this debate anyway. The nature of the debate is designed to make sure that no alternative views are given.

The role of Leader of the House in providing some level of leadership you would think would have something to do with participation in the House. You would think the Leader of the House would have some level of respect for the House, for its protocols and for debate within it. But we have a circumstance where he cannot cope with any more debate when only one person has spoken. It is not as if the Leader of the House has been putting this bill forward and wanting to create an opportunity for people to talk and he is now looking at the clock ticking, saying that we are running out of time and we need to bring it to a close. What the Leader of the House is doing on this is simply saying that one person from the government is all he needs and at that point he just wants to crunch it through and use this parliament as though it were an Adelaide branch meeting, use this parliament as though he was just crunching the numbers through, back to his days in the Young Liberals, crunching it through, pushing it through as though this was not the parliament of Australia but some student politician's playground. That is the way the Leader of the House is treating this parliament.

The parliament should resist this. The parliament, faced with a resolution which shuts down debate and which also goes to the extent of creating an impossible circumstance with conflicting amendments, should, first, tell the Leader of the House that if he is going to come back with a resolution he should draft it properly in a way that does not put the parliament in a circumstance of dealing with impossible procedures. Further, the Leader of the House ought to be in a situation where he deals with the fact that in some speeches that come from other sides of the chamber he might not like what is said. He might not like that there are different views within this parliament. But each member of this parliament has been elected to be able to put the views on behalf of their electorates. Each member of this parliament has a right to be able to put the views and to participate in the argument. But what does it say about the reluctance of those opposite to actually participate in a debate where they might have to defend the abolition of the Schoolkids Bonus? What does it say about the confidence in the arguments of those opposite that they want to run away from having to defend issues that they took to the election, that they want to run away from actually defending this government's agenda? I can assure you, Madam Speaker, that there is no shortage of members on this side of the House wanting to participate in this debate. There is no shortage of members on this side of the House wanting to take the argument up to the government when the mining tax issues are brought on.

Government members interjecting—

I think those opposite do not quite recognise that this is not the mining tax debate. We want that debate brought on and we want to be able to participate on it. But what does it say when the one role that most government members will have in this debate is to vote to shut it down, the one piece of participation they will have before we actually get to the second reading debate is to vote that they themselves will not be heard, to vote that they themselves will not have to stand up and front up to the arguments about the abolition of the Schoolkids Bonus, they will not have to front up to the arguments about the cuts to superannuation, they will not have to front up to actually defend what they are told is the position of this government? It is right and proper that people are given the chance to participate in this debate. The resolution is impossible to be carried through if we end up with conflicting amendments. And once again, true to form, the entire resolution is about shutting down debate and building on the culture of secrecy which has come to characterise this parliament.

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