Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy Speaker. It's good to be here with you and with that champion of free speech over there, the member for Goldstein. Of course, the government didn't want this sitting, did they. They cancelled the parliament until August, but even they realised that, with school going back and rugby going back, they couldn't get away with not having the parliament come back. But these three days are a sham. This chamber here sat for zero hours yesterday. The government has cut the number of hours for debate. We're lucky to get two today. If we have a really good day out we might get three hours to debate things tomorrow.

We're in the middle of the biggest crisis for decades—the biggest, fastest economic collapse that this country has ever seen. The national parliament gathers, but the government won't even allow a debate on the economy. They won't allow a debate in this chamber on the Treasurer's vacuous, content-free, slogan-ridden 'economic statement' yesterday. If you're lucky you might get 90 seconds. That's what our citizens expect, is it? We come here for 90 seconds of fatuous nonsense! God forbid a real debate here.

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