Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

I second the amendment moved by the Manager of Opposition Business, that amendment being the elimination of paragraph (8):

any question on amendments provided for under paragraph (7) being put after no more than 20 minutes of debate, unless a Minister sets further periods of 10 minutes for debate;

As the Manager of Opposition Business has just articulated very well, this is basically a gag order on what is an exceptionally important piece of legislation. The minister lamented earlier that it was never his fault. It's never the government's fault. He lamented the terrible things that we, as the opposition, did yesterday. They are the only reason he has to do this. We wasted time. We've cut debating time for this bill. This is the terrible thing we did. I will just remind the chamber that what we were doing yesterday was offering the government the opportunity to fast-track four section of this larger omnibus bill that could've already passed the chamber. They could've got up and supported those four elements of the bill and we could've moved on and done that, but the government chose not to do that. The government chose not to have us help them support four elements of this bill yesterday. The bill literally could've been fast-tracked.

As the Manager of Opposition Business just said, this government has a pattern of gag motions and of stopping this parliament from debating. If time is such a critical thing—if we need this time and we're cutting time short—I would remind the chamber that the government saw fit to cancelled a whole sitting week of parliament just recently. We lost four days of parliamentary debate through that process. The government saw fit to completely wipe a whole sitting of this parliament. To lament the terrible things that the opposition are doing—we took two or three hours yesterday to go through a process that we thought could've fast-tracked some elements of the bill—they're saying, 'You're terrible people. Now, because you've done that, we unfortunately have to do this.'

We support the extra hours of sitting. We support going through till 10.30 to debate this bill. As the Manager of Opposition Business said, the part that they're trying to gag is the consideration in detail. This is where a lot of amendments will be put. This is where a lot of hose amendments are discussed. The government are showing no interest in and no respect for the processes of this chamber. They can't lament time when, having just cancelled a week's sitting of parliament, they say, 'Oh, we haven't got time now. We've got to cut short the consideration in detail on what is a very important bill.'

This is a complex piece of legislation. This is, I think, overreach. These changes to the industrial relations system are very complex, and a lot of amendments will be moved, and they are amendments that will have been well considered. They will be amendments that a lot of people will want to have the right and the respect of going through the proper parliamentary process.

I say to the Leader of the House: the time that you say was wasted yesterday was time in which you literally could've supported those elements of the bill so as to have them already passed. You say that we're short of time. Well, you cancelled a week's sitting of parliament, which didn't seem to be a problem, yet you're now saying that you're short of time. This is complex legislation. This is important legislation. There will be many serious amendments moved. Again, this is a pattern of this new government. It's a bit of hubris and arrogance from this new government, I think. It's a gag order, and I support and second the motion of the Manager of Opposition Business.

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