Andrew Wilkie (Clark, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I'll start by saying something positive. I applaud the government for being open to amending standing orders to better reflect the numbers in this House. It is an undeniable fact that about a third of people who cast a vote in May cast their primary vote for someone other than the Labor Party or the Liberal and National parties, so I think these standing orders go some very positive way to reflecting that in the parliament, in particular with things such as questions. I would hope that with all the other areas of parliamentary business we also have our fair share of the action, so to speak.

I would also like to applaud the government for their oral undertaking this morning to further amend the matter of urgent motions to make it more workable and fairer. I think the member for Warringah has done a sterling job by getting that amendment sorted very, very quickly and I support it. If the amendment is in fact carried by the House that will go some considerable way to fixing the problems we're identifying with dealing with urgent motions and matters before the House.

I would like to take this opportunity to say I still have some outstanding concerns about how we go about dealing with urgent matters. Of course there will be urgent matters, for example, national security—perhaps some very urgent legislation to do with counterterrorism measures. Of course, there will be genuinely urgent matters. But I think it is very, very important, perhaps even more important now with this proposed amendment to standing orders, that the government—the minister or the Prime Minister or the manager of the House—comes in and makes the case for it being an urgent matter. I think it should be enshrined in the standing orders that someone from the government will always come in here and make the case and explain why something is urgent and not just simply walk in and declare something urgent. I think that will give some comfort to all members of the House.

I'm also still concerned about the amount of time for honourable members to contribute to debate. Debate will finish at 10 pm on the night of the day that something is declared urgent. It will finish at 10 pm no matter what. Even with the reduced speaking slots of 10 minutes that means there will almost certainly be some honourable members who will not get an opportunity to contribute to the debate. I see no reason why we can't be prepared to sit after 10 pm if the matter is genuinely attracting that sort of level of interest from members and other people want to speak. Sure, we should make this place more user-friendly but it should not be at the expense of this place operating properly. When something is urgent almost by definition it's a big deal. Maybe we need to sit after 10 pm and not be more concerned about getting back to a hotel for a bit of kip.

I'd also make the point that while the change which is contained within the member for Warringah's amendment—that anyone moving an amendment will be given five minutes to speak to that amendment—is good, I still think it's lamentable that other members won't be allowed to contribute to a debate about that amendment, or, in fact, to speak about matters more broadly and the bill before the House. I would ask that consideration be given on a few things: (1) that the standing orders include a mandatory requirement for an appropriate member of the government to make the case for why something is urgent. Furthermore, that somehow there be some open-mindedness in the standing orders that we might need to sit after 10 pm, and also that the matter be reviewed with an open mind to allowing other members to contribute during the third reading debate—presumably, the following morning. I would warn the government that if this change to standing orders is misused in any way, if the new government starts declaring things urgent that are not genuinely urgent, then it will stand accused of being just an echo of the previous government, which all too often—all too often!—would gag debate to bring matters on when they weren't urgent at all.

I would also take this opportunity to make the point that this idea that there won't be divisions after 6.30, unless a division is called by a minister—I think I have that right—is flawed. Particularly for us on the crossbench, how can we be sure that a minister won't walk in here and put the question unexpectedly on some matter which we might want to call a division on? Sure the division might be deferred, but we may not be here in the House to call a division that will be deferred to the next day anyway. So while that 6.30 rule is good in principle, while it's attractive at first blush, I think it is flawed in some ways, particularly as far as the crossbench goes.

The other point I would make, while I have the opportunity, is I received these amendments at approximately 8.30 this morning. I don't know what happened. I understand the opposition received them yesterday afternoon, as they should have. But what I saw this morning, on the first day of substantive business in this House, was a repeat of something that happened time and time again for the last nine years, which the then opposition railed against, the crossbench railed against and I'm railing against now. It's not good enough. We can't be given one hour to have a quick look at something and then come in here and debate it, and perhaps to divide on it. It's not how this place should work. We all know that. So let's hope it was a little administrative slip-up this morning and it doesn't happen again.

See this speech in context