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

Mr Deputy Speaker, for the question to be put immediately would actually be contrary to the suspension of standing orders motion that the House has carried. The House carried the motion by the minister for drought that all the standing orders that would get in the way of this debate occurring be automatically suspended and that could be varied by a motion moved by a minister. What the minister has just done is activate standing order 31(c)(ii). Standing order 31(c)(ii)—and he has activated it accurately—says that if a minister requires the question to be put immediately as proposed under paragraph (a) then that would happen.

The problem for the minister in this instance is that the question that would then be put was not moved by a minister; it is, in fact, under standing order 31 proposed by the Speaker. Under the suspension of standing orders motion that we carried only a minister can move a motion that would vary the arrangements that we have. The Deputy Speaker cannot propose a motion that would vary the arrangements that we have. If this were allowed then for the rest of the night I would be allowed, for example, to move that the debate be adjourned, to move to suspend the standing orders and to move a whole lot of things that would be completely inconsistent with the resolution.

I put it to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the minister can't in the first instance have a motion to get a bill through its various stages that can be varied only by a motion moved by a minister and then activate a standing order that would have the motion, in fact, proposed by the Deputy Speaker and not moved by a minister.

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