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

I did move quickly. These weeks are functioning entirely on cooperation. The government, for different suspensions, including the one that was moved yesterday, does not have an absolute majority. And, if the parliament were to sit, the government would be incapable of having an absolute majority. With that in mind, that's why there is a high degree of cooperation being sought from the opposition and being granted by the opposition.

The government put forward two other pieces of legislation where they sought our cooperation and they made a case for why they were urgent. The first of those was the legislation that went through yesterday with respect to the privacy protections for the COVIDSafe app. The case was made as to why it was urgent, and the opposition accepted that case and facilitated debate. We made sure yesterday that by the time it got to past 7 o'clock the member for Kennedy was the only speaker remaining. When he concluded his remarks there was no need for a gag; there was no need for that sort of obstruction to happen in the House. We simply withdrew the additional speakers we had on the list, the minister was able to provide his comments-in-reply and it was done. Similarly, later today we will deal with an aged-care bill where the government have explained the reasons why that is urgent. The urgency of the aged-care bill doesn't go to issues necessarily related to COVID-19. It's urgent for a different reason, but the government has made the case as to why it's urgent, and we've heard that and we've cooperated.

With respect to the Export Control Legislation Amendment (Certification of Narcotic Exports) Bill 2020, this is a bill that has been hanging around for a very long time, has been spoken about for a very long time—the shadow minister for agriculture has mentioned in dispatches how long this issue has been around—and has never been considered urgent and was never even introduced into the parliament until now. Why there is a sudden urgency for this to get through the House of Representatives in one day when the government have had the issue in front of them for something like a year or more and have never bothered to introduce it before is a case that needs to be made. The government haven't made that case. They've simply said: 'Yes, we want it through. Let's make it urgent'. It's not whether the bill has merit or not; there are lots of bills that have merit that the opposition supports, and I suspect this will be one of them. But the issue of something passing through the parliament in a single day requires the issue to be of a different gravity. There is a reason why the standing orders say that after a bill is introduced you don't go straight into the debate on it. To move that we debate it immediately is a big call. It's a big call that when the government makes the case, we cooperate. We have proof of that yesterday and proof of that again today. But, on this one, they haven't made the case or sought to make the case as to why it's urgent. It is not unreasonable, at all, for this parliament to expect that when a piece of legislation is introduced it will lay on the table for at least a day before we then discuss it and we then debate it. To have a situation where this is put urgently to us without that case being made—it's simply not reasonable and it's not in the spirit of how the parliament has been operating in weeks like this.

In different weeks I may express different levels of outrage over this sort of behaviour, but, can I tell you, in the context of us all being nice and calm to each other, this is high outrage. It really is unreasonable. I don't blame the minister at the table, but my office had been advised that any attempt by the government to bring it on today would happen after all the introductions had been dealt with. That was the advice that had come through to me. So to then find not only it being introduced without making the case but that the minister introducing the bill, had, I presume, been advised by someone else to move that motion immediately, is contrary to what we'd been told and is contrary to any reasonable case that had been made.

I don't know if this has something to do with negotiations on other issues in the Senate. I don't know if there's some other reason why the government might have a political objective to push this through so quickly, but if there's a policy case for this being urgent you would have thought that sometime in the last 12 months they would have introduced the legislation. You would have thought, in the whole period that we've had where the issue has been alive, that they would have bothered to draft the legislation. I can't see what's happened in the last few weeks that means that an issue, that, for a long time, has been, 'Yes, we'll get around to it,' is suddenly, 'We're doing this today and it must be completed today.' Unless the government wants to start playing games with the level of cooperation that has been shown in this parliament, I would advise the government very strongly: when you make the case for something being urgent we have proven that we will be cooperative and we will be responsible; when the case is not made, it is unreasonable of the government to use its numbers on a contingency motion, and to use its numbers in various resolutions in this way, in a parliament that is only meeting at the moment because of cooperation. Don't take the goodwill when you want it and then trash it the moment the sittings are underway.

An honourable member interjecting—

If nothing else, I've proven I spend more time with music than I do with health! I've clarified that! But the case has to be made, and this does matter. It goes to the whole operation of the parliament. I can't stress that enough. On the policy issue itself, the shadow minister for agriculture will be able to make the case more strongly than me. But, in terms of the processes of the House, don't take the cooperation when it's offered and then refuse a simple opposition request that you need to make the case for urgency.

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