Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I wish to speak briefly to the amendments moved by the Manager of Opposition Business to the motion moved by me in relation to the standing orders. He has created a great canard which needs to be dealt with, that the idea that the change to standing order 132 was conceived because of the events of September the first, as we call them on this side of the House. The events of 1 September had absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the changes to standing order 132.

I proposed on 30 and 31 August to change standing order 132. I sent the proposed changes to the standing orders to the office of the Manager of Opposition Business. My office was in communication with his office about these machinery provision changes, the vast majority of which were proposed by the Petitions Committee and by the Procedure Committee. The Manager of Opposition Business responded on several of the changes—things that he regarded as noncontroversial—which we implemented. He has not responded to the rest of the changes since that time, giving the lie to the idea that the opposition wishes to cooperate in this parliament. For the first time ever, the opposition is not even giving leave for the third reading of bills that they support.

Clearly, the opposition's claim that they want to cooperate is simply mealy mouthed words, because if they did want to cooperate they would continue to do what they have always done and what we did when we were in opposition, blessedly for only six years, and give leave for third reading debates. They are not doing so, because they are not trying to cooperate. That is relevant because they are not cooperating. I see that the member for McEwen, who is in the chamber, is looking for the connection. It is relevant to this debate because, similarly, the Manager of Opposition Business has not cooperated in relation to talking to me about the machinery provisions—changes to petitions and to procedures—proposed by the Procedure Committee, which are quite clearly noncontroversial. In fact, as a mark of my good faith, I said to the Manager of Opposition Business and to the crossbenchers in the first sitting week that, even if the government did not want to propose any more changes to standing orders, we would still allow a debate on standing order reforms so that the opposition and the crossbenchers could move amendments to the standing orders, and we would facilitate that debate. So all the way along I have tried to show my cooperation with the five crossbenchers and with the opposition

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