Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move amendment No. 2:

(1) Insert proposed amendments to standing order 1:

1 Maximum speaking times (amendments to existing subjects, as follows)

(2) Omit proposed standing order 29, substitute:

29 Set meeting and adjournment times

(a) The House shall meet each year in accordance with the program of sittings for that year agreed to by the House, unless otherwise ordered and subject to standing order 30.

(b) When the House is sitting it shall meet and adjourn at the following times, subject to standing orders 30, 31 and 32:

(3) Omit proposed standing order 31.

(4) Omit proposed standing order 34, substitute:

34 Order of business

The order of business to be followed by the House is shown in figure 2.

Figure 2. House order of business

(5) Insert proposed standing order 35:

35 Priority of business

Government business shall have priority over committee and delegation business and private Members' business except on Mondays as provided by standing orders 34 (order of business) and 192 (Federation Chamber's order of business) and on Thursdays as provided by standing order 34 (order of business).

(6) Insert proposed standing order 41:

41 Private Members ' business

(a) In the periods set for committee and delegation business and private Members' business under standing orders 34 and 192, private Members' notices and orders of the day shall be considered in the order shown on the Notice Paper. When the time set by standing orders 34 or 192 or determined by the Selection Committee ends, the Speaker shall interrupt proceedings and the matter shall be listed on the Notice Paper for the next sitting.

Private Members ' bills—priority

(b) The Selection Committee, in making determinations:

  (i) shall give priority to private Members' notices of intention to present bills over other notices and orders of the day; and

  (ii) shall set the order in which the bills are to be presented.

First and second reading

(c)Subject to this standing order, the first and second reading shall proceed in accordance with standing orders 141 and 142. The Member who has presented the bill may speak to the second reading for no longer than 10 minutes at the time of presentation and 5 minutes on resumption of the debate. The Selection Committee may determine times for consideration of the remainder of the second reading debate.

Priority following second reading

(d) If the motion for the second reading is agreed to by the House, further consideration of the bill shall be accorded priority over other private Members' business and the Selection Committee may determine times for consideration of the remaining stages.

Alternation of notices

(e) Subject to paragraph (b) (i), the Selection Committee shall provide for the consideration of private Members' notices to alternate between those of government and non-government Members.

Participation of Speaker and Deputy Speaker

(f) The Speaker and Deputy Speaker may participate in private Members' business.

Voting on items of private Members ' business

(g) In the period set for voting on items of private Members' business under standing orders 34 and 35, private Members' orders of the day, having been recommended by the Selection Committee to be voted on, shall have priority and be called on immediately for passage through all stages, unless the Member with carriage of the item, or another Member at his or her request, sets a future Thursday for the item to be voted on.

(7) Omit proposed standing order 55, substitute:

55 Lack of quorum

(a) When the attention of the Speaker is drawn to the state of the House and the Speaker observes that a quorum is not present, the Speaker shall count the Members present in accordance with standing order 56.

(b) On Mondays, if any Member draws the attention of the Speaker to the state of the House between 10 am and 12 noon, the Speaker shall announce that he or she will count the House at 12 noon, if the Member then so desires.

(c) On Mondays, if any Member draws the attention of the Speaker to the state of the House between the hours of 7.30 pm and 9.30 pm, the Speaker shall announce that he or she will count the House at 12 noon on Tuesday, if the Member then so desires, notwithstanding that quorums called between 12 noon and 2.00 pm on Tuesdays are deferred until after the discussion of the matter of public importance.

(d) On Tuesdays, if any Member draws the attention of the Speaker to the state of the House between the hours of 7.30 pm and 9.30 pm, the Speaker shall announce that he or she will count the House at 9.30 am on Wednesday, if the Member then so desires.

(e) If a quorum is in fact present when a Member draws attention to the state of the House, the Speaker may name the Member in accordance with standing order 94(b) (sanctions against disorderly conduct).

(8) Insert proposed standing orders 100, 101, and 104:

101 Speaker ' s discretion about questions

The Speaker may:

(a) direct a Member to change the language of a question asked during Question Time if the language is inappropriate or does not otherwise conform with the standing orders; and

(b) allow supplementary questions to be asked to clarify an answer to a question asked during Question Time; and

(c) change the language of a question in writing if the language is inappropriate or does not otherwise conform with the standing orders.

(9) Omit proposed standing order 133, substitute:

133 Deferred divisions on Mondays and Tuesdays

(a) On Mondays, any division called for between the hours of 10 am and 12 noon shall be deferred until 12 noon, except for a division called on a motion moved by a Minister during this period.

(b) On Mondays, any division called for between the hours of 7.30 pm and 9.30 pm shall be deferred until after the discussion of the matter of public importance on Tuesday, unless leave has been granted for the division to take place immediately.

(c) On Tuesdays, any division called for between the hours of 7.30 pm and 9.30 pm shall be deferred until 9.30 am on Wednesday, unless leave has been granted for the division to take place immediately.

(d) The Speaker shall put all questions on which a division has been deferred, successively and without amendment or further debate.

(10) Omit proposed standing order 192, substitute:

192 Federation Chamber ' s indicative order of business

The normal order of business of the Federation Chamber is set out in figure 4.

Figure 4. Federation Chamber indicative order of business

The meeting times of the Federation Chamber are fixed by the Deputy Speaker and are subject to change. Times shown for the start and finish of items of business are approximate. Adjournment debates can occur on days other than Thursdays by agreement between the Whips.

(11) Omit proposed standing order 192B

(12) Insert proposed standing order 197:

197 Return of matters to the House

The Federation Chamber may return a matter to the House before its consideration is completed.

(a) A matter may be returned to the House on a motion moved without notice at any time by any Member, no seconder required —

That further proceedings be conducted in the House .

The motion shall be put without amendment or debate. If the Federation Chamber agrees to, or is unable to resolve, this question, the bill or order of the day shall be returned to the House. Consideration in the House must continue from the point reached in the Federation Chamber and the House must resolve any issues that the Federation Chamber reports.

(b) The House may at any time require a matter to be returned for further consideration, on a motion moved without notice by a Minister any Member. The matter must be set down for consideration at a later hour that day.

(c) An item of government business may be returned to the House by a programming declaration made in accordance with standing order 45.

Earlier in the debate today, the Leader of the House referred to a letter that had been sent to him containing a number of proposed amendments to the standing orders that have the support of the crossbench and, indeed, the opposition. He said that some of those were under consideration and might be considered further in the future. We have had a number of opportunities to debate standing orders, so I say to the minister for innovation: the future is now. Now we have the opportunity to pass some of these amendments that will make this parliament work better.

In the previous minority parliament, the 43rd parliament, there were a number of amendments that had been agreed to by the now Leader of the House. Those amendments included the prospect of private members having greater opportunity to not only bring their motions and bills on for debate but also have them voted on. That was signed up to by the Leader of the House at the time. They were referred to as being excellent reforms. Excellent reforms they were, because they allowed issues that might otherwise not get ventilated to be brought to the fore, debated and voted on.

I can give you an example of the kind of things that happened only because we had those standing orders in place. We found out during the last parliament that there were firefighters who were dying of cancer and they were not getting access to compensation. When they were turning up to WorkCover, or the like, to ask for compensation they were told: 'No. Unless you can tell us which particular fire you contracted your particular cancer at when you inhaled those toxic chemicals and toxic smoke we're not going to give you compensation.' So you had firefighters on shifts filling in for other firefighters while they went off and got chemo and radiotherapy. It was an appalling state of affairs.

I introduced a bill that was co-sponsored by the member for Kennedy, and other members of the House, that said we will change that. We will change that so that firefighters who get cancer are presumed to have contracted it from their work, because that is what the science said would be the case. We had the capacity to bring that on for a debate, so, when it was brought on for a debate, the government at the time—the Labor Party—thought that was a good idea, and they signed up to it as co-sponsors. Even more so, the opposition—the Liberal-National coalition—also looked at it and said, 'What a good idea. Let's sign up.' We ended up with a co-sponsored bill that had the support across the parliament, and that passed the parliament with the unanimous support of everyone—no-one dissented. Everyone supported it saying, 'This is a sensible change.' It was something that, despite the years of government work on both sides and years of committee work, had been overlooked. It took a private member to bring it here and say, 'Let's have a debate about it.'

Why were we able to have that important reform that has made a massive difference to the lives of many firefighters and their families? There were two reasons: one is that we had the time to debate it. We had the time to debate it because a selection committee said, 'We want crossbenchers' bills to be debated in this parliament as well as opposition bills and government bills.' But, crucially, we had the opportunity to have it voted on. In this parliament you have 150 members who each represent their electorate—a point that the member for Sturt, the Leader of the House, made in that very same speech to the IPA that the member for Grayndler was referring to. Mr Pyne said, 'Every individual member who is here has a job to do to represent their electorate.' We had the capacity to vote on it, so we were able to achieve meaningful reform. But it would be very gravely disappointing if we lost that in this parliament.

What this amendment proposes is that there is greater time to debate private members' bills—not at the expense of government business, but in addition to government business. We have greater time to debate those private members' bills. That means the crossbenchers in this parliament can have more time to have their bills debated. On a Thursday morning—here is a very simple amendment that should be supported by the government—we will have a short period, as we did in the last parliament, where votes on private members' matters can take place.

On the Thursday morning, we can move very quickly through a series of issues that have been debated elsewhere and then vote on them. If they go down they go down. But what you might find is that some of them get up, just as they did in the last parliament.

I do not understand what the opposition would be to doing this, because government business would still continue to be the majority of what takes place not only on a Thursday but, indeed, during the whole course of the parliament.

We have not had a response yet from the Leader of the House to this proposal that was put to him some time ago. I hope that what he is going to suggest now is that the answer is: yes. In the same way that he agreed with that very sensible amendment moved by the member for Kennedy, we have the chance now to say, 'yes' to that as well.

There are a number of other amendments that are included in this bundle. If the Leader of the House wants to segment those out, I am open to that discussion. I move them all as a bundle, because this will take us back to the procedures that were in operation in the minority parliament. What is becoming crystal clear after a fortnight is that the minority parliament worked better than this parliament. It would be a very good idea if we adopted the standing orders with respect to the last parliament.

I would hope that the government would consider the bundle of amendments, but, in particular, that one that will allow private members' business to be voted on—hopefully in conjunction with a selection committee—that will allow private members' bills, and especially those of the crossbenchers, to be debated and then brought on for a vote. In this parliament, the number of seats in this chamber are a reflection of the fact that a record number of the Australian population chose not to vote for one of the major parties. There is a great desire in the Australian population to have third-party voices heard. When we come here we want to not only move bills and move motions but also have them voted on, because sometimes those motions and those bills will be so good that they will succeed. I commend the amendments to the House.

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