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

The member for Grayndler says I am a saint. It is not often that I am called a saint, particularly by the member for Grayndler, but the truth is that we are trying to cooperate with the opposition because we want the 45th Parliament to be a constructive parliament that is good for Australia and makes the changes that Australians need, to ensure they have jobs, to ensure growth in our economy and to do the social reforms that are necessary in our society, including marriage equality through a plebiscite, which is our policy.

I have dealt with the canard of the Manager for Opposition Business that this has been as a result of 1 September. Some of the crossbenchers believe that the definition that I am seeking to reform in the standing orders would allow the government to recommit motions in the event that people miss divisions—for example, because they have left the building. The truth is that misadventure is well understood as a convention in this building. If somebody misses a division here or in the Senate because of misadventure, like, for example, being stuck in the facilities in the building, which has occurred in the past—on that occasion, unfortunately, because the member thought a door was a push-pull door when it was a sliding door—that is clearly a misadventure. The person will remain nameless. They are no longer with us, happily. They are still alive, I should say, but they are not with us in the chamber any more.

The SPEAKER interjecting—

I digress, Mr Speaker—I find the member for Grayndler distracts me from the task. But misadventure is clearly when a member of parliament, through some error or misjudgement, misses the division. It is not because they did not have a pair and left the building. That has been very clear as a convention of this place and of the Senate for a very long time, and the government is not proposing to change that convention.

I would also remind the member for Grayndler, who seems to have forgotten this particular important vignette, that the change I am trying to bring to section 132 of the standing orders is exactly the same way that the standing orders were before the 43rd Parliament. And for three years, as Leader of the House, he thought that was perfectly appropriate. He never made any attempt to change the standing orders in the 42nd Parliament to reflect his new-found love of democracy in the House of Representatives. He was forced, kicking and screaming, by the crossbenchers at the time to change standing order 132 in the 43rd Parliament.

Now, of course, we face different circumstances, and it is very important for the management of the democracy in which we live, and the House of Representatives, that the will of the people be reflected in votes. That is the purpose of standing order 132—that the will of the people at the election be reflected in the votes in the parliament. Therefore, if a member, through misadventure, fails to attend the chamber but would otherwise have been here to vote either aye or nay, that vote should be recommitted, and the government should have that capacity in the standing orders, under section 132, to do so on a simple majority. That is the purpose of it.

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