Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Yes, it was fun! They were fun debates. I'm glad Christopher is no longer in this job but I am sad he is no longer in the parliament; I'll acknowledge that!

We'd both jump because, if you jumped and you got to be the one to move that it be made an order of the day, that meant you had carriage of the bill—so we'd each want that. Christopher would usually jump and be first, as Leader of the House, and he'd get the call, and then it'd go onto the Notice Paper under government business. The only person who beat him was not me jumping from there; it was the member for Melbourne jumping from up there, on the anticorruption commission private members' bill that came across. As a result, the second reading speech came on for debate and the second reading was moved by the member for Melbourne.

I am struggling to work out how we got here, because I'm not sure anyone other than the current Manager of Opposition Business could have achieved this one. He complained we could have dealt with this quickly. Well, we spent an hour and a half on speeches being made by opposition members about why this had to be dealt with quickly, and, because the full hour and a half was used up, the question didn't get put at all. I didn't make the Manager of Opposition Business do that. The opposition members looked really proud they were holding all this up. What they were holding up was that first message ever making it onto the Notice Paper.

In those speeches they complained about the motion I had moved. So, the second time, I didn't come into the chamber to move a motion, presuming that what would probably happen is what used to happen with Christopher Pyne and myself ready to jump, and that the opposition would jump. They didn't. There was a long pause. No-one jumped. As a result, the second of the messages, the second bill, will never appear on the Notice Paper. I did not make that happen. Ordinarily, any Manager of Opposition Business would jump and would move the resolution. If you check with the clerks in advance or if you check on the blue—he has been quoting this—the motion to move that the second reading be made an order of the day for the next sitting is there; what you have to move is actually there. But the Manager of Opposition Business, on the second message, didn't move anything, so the second bill doesn't get on the Notice Paper.

We then had a long period of points of order between the Manager of Opposition Business and myself. During that long period of points of order back and forth, you, Mr Speaker, made it clear to the Manager of Opposition Business what he would have to move and what the procedure was. Had he moved that, the bill would be on the Notice Paper tomorrow and there would be an order of the day, and it would be possible in subsequent days, if they wanted to put pressure on the government, to move to bring on this bill that was on the Notice Paper that was an order of the day, and they'd be able to list what number it was and the suspension and have the debate to put pressure on the government. He was specifically told by you, Mr Speaker, what he had to move. But he gets a rush of blood to the head and instead moves a suspension of standing orders. So he gets to have the vote and the debate but he could have moved what the Speaker had said, got it onto the Notice Paper and then moved the suspension, and the bill would have remained in front of the House on an ongoing basis through the Notice Paper. But then, during the whole 25 minutes of that suspension debate and the period for the division, there was no moment where the Manager of Opposition Business checked what the impact of this particular tactic was. So the third one doesn't get on the Notice Paper.

All he had to do to get the fourth message, the fourth bill, onto the Notice Paper was say out loud the words that are on the blue that had been suggested by the Speaker. What does the Manager of Opposition Business do? He stands up and moves another suspension. So we end up with a situation where you have four private member's bills that come from the Senate to here, and, through actions entirely within the agency of the Manager of Opposition Business, where all he had to do was read out loud the dozen or so words that were there printed in front of him—he refused to do that and made sure that, as far as the procedures of the House are concerned, after today, none of these bills are before the House. The only way for them to be introduced is to put one forward for private member's business and give notice of it, and I guess it comes up in private member's business on the Monday when we're back after next week off. Why anyone would do this, I have no idea.

I am regretful to some members of the crossbench that approached me in good faith about moving suspensions on this issue. I always give honest procedural advice when asked questions like that. I said the logical time to move a suspension would be the following day because then you've got it on the Notice Paper. What never occurred to me when I was talking to the crossbench about waiting until the second day was that there would be no second day; that the Manager of Opposition Business would take all the work that Senator Cash had done in the Senate and refuse to follow procedure for any one of the four bills.

So now we're going through one suspension after the other to be able to have a debate so he can tell his side he fought the good fight—even though the only reason this has been stuffed up completely is that the Manager of Opposition Business decided to wing it on the first time this term that private member's bills make it across from the Senate. It's a big deal when this happens. It doesn't happen that often. You go to the Clerk, you talk to the Speaker, you read the procedure, you work out the rules and you don't make a mess of it. Now the only thing he will have achieved is wasting an hour and a half this morning and I don't know how long this afternoon, when we could have been debating the bill that was already before the House that deals with these exact provisions and getting that done.

There's a long speaking list. Having lost this time, I advise the House now that I'll be putting something on the Notice Paper for us to have some extra nights to make sure we fit everybody in. I won't be cutting the speaking time, but I'm going to have to provide extra time for the House because we basically have wasted a day because four messages that could have been dealt with in about five minutes have instead been catapulted from the Senate to here and then to oblivion by the design, for reasons I will never understand, of the Manager of Opposition Business. That's where we are. The government will vote against this suspension, although, as I said, even if it were carried, it refers to an order of the day that does not exist.

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