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

Zero! So now they're coming back claiming that this is urgent from their perspective, claiming a passion and goodwill! And, when they were asked to talk about the legislation, they could find 28 minutes and there was not a single reference to any of the provisions that we're talking about now. Not one! It is unparliamentary to use the word 'hypocrite'. It is not an parliamentary to refer to hypocrisy, and we are witnessing hypocrisy on steroids right now.

The question then, though, is, why would they want to split the bill? Of course they haven't split the bill, because the bill's still here, and we probably won't get to debate it today because we've wasted all this time. That's probably what will happen. So the net impact of this entire game will be: we'll have a couple of late nights the next couple of nights to get through the speeches because we had all of these suspensions, not because procedurally they were going to get anywhere but because the Manager of Opposition Business felt he needed some cover for the monumental stuff-up that he participated in. So, if you're one of the people who gets rostered on for the 10 pm slot over the next couple of nights, remember this moment, because it's the only reason it's going to happen. If you look at the number of people on the speaking lists and the time that we were planning to set aside for the week, it was all there. For all the talk of 'Will there be a gag motion?' and 'What will happen?', we haven't gagged a vote, we haven't reduced speaking times and we've been making sure that these provisions all get to be discussed and discussed properly.

The other issue that comes up—and I respect that the Deputy Manager of Opposition Business has raised this a couple of times—is the issue of amendments, as though somehow it would be a victory for me and why don't I want to get the bill through in the exact form. Senate inquiries can improve legislation. They are often do, particularly on provisions like this. And I might say some of the people in the Senate who voted for these private members' bills are also negotiating with me about amendments to the provisions in the main bill. They don't want them to go through in this form either. Evidence has been brought to the Senate committee on each of these four bills about how some of the different provisions need to be tweaked to have maximum effect. As the Leader of the House, I probably let the House down—I don't knock the Senate as much as most of my predecessors did. I'm more respectful. That might just be because Senator Wong is the leader over there and it's just a smarter course of action.

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