Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Criminal Code Amendment (Firearms Trafficking) Bill 2017. I rise to support the bill that was carried by the Senate in February and which the government has sat on for eight months in an act of petulance, which typifies the attitude of this government towards the democratic processes.

Of course, the fundamental disagreement that we have over our position about maximum sentences versus their position of mandatory sentencing shows that they not only act in a petulant manner in the political sphere; they also don't seem to comprehend the need for the separation of powers to be at the core of the functioning of our nation. That principle is something that can't be bargained away. It's a principle which applies at the local, state and federal levels, and it's a principle which people who profess to support the rule of law should just understand as—dare I use the term—a mandatory principle.

But what we see today is a minister who, unlike most people in this place—we often get told that we grow older by multiples of the calendar while we're here—gets less mature the longer he is here.

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