Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I second the motion. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I referred to the Practice on the issue of conferences and I believe this is only the third time that the issue of a conference has come up in this place. Those of you who may be watching or listening at home may be wondering, 'What is a conference?' The standing orders of both the House and Senate provide for the holding of conferences between the two houses.

According to House of Representatives Practice:

Grounds for conferences are not restricted to resolving disagreements between the Houses over legislation, but to date formal conferences of delegates or managers representing the two Houses have been used only for this purpose.

We're making law here today, effectively. Prior to today:

Only two such conferences have ever been held, and it seems unlikely that a formal conference would be used to resolve disagreements between the Houses in contemporary political circumstances.

There you go. That's going to have to be rewritten, isn't it?

We're here because Senators Pocock and Lambie have successfully moved a motion in the Senate, and the Senate has officially sent a message to the House requesting a particular action to be taken—namely, the holding of a conference. On behalf of the opposition I'd like to thank Senators Pocock and Lambie for their work, for their leadership on this point. The message from the Senate has now been received, and it's now up to the House to decide when to consider this message. The question of 'when' is now before the House. After the question of when the House ought to consider the message is resolved, a motion could be moved to give effect to the message's request—namely, that the conference be convened between the two chambers of this parliament.

As I said, this is an extraordinary step. The opposition has not moved this motion lightly. Motions of this kind, as I said, are very rare. The only time the Senate has requested a conference was 22 June 1950, when the Senate resolved to request a conference with the House on an amendment by the House to a bill that had originated in the Senate. As it eventuated then, the House did not agree to the request for a conference. I'm not sure whether the Leader of the House was in the House back in 1950—similar tactics? But in the life of the House there have been few times that the House itself has requested a conference with the Senate and fewer times still that one has been agreed.

According to Practice, the last time there was a conference or joint sitting of this kind—there's some vagueness about this—was 2001. At that time, parliamentarians met to mark the centenary of the first meetings of the houses of the Commonwealth parliament in 1901. So these conferences and the motions that give effect to them are rare occurrences, and they should be treated carefully.

As is evident by the motion, negotiations between the government and other members and senators have broken down on the legislation noted in the Senate's message—indeed, broken down to such an extent that the Senate has felt compelled to make this extraordinary request of the House. This is regrettable. At every step along the way the Leader of the House has tried to block scrutiny of his own industrial relations legislation. Members would recall that the opposition initially moved, some months ago, to subject this bill to an advisory report. The government voted this motion down, because they were afraid of what dirty deals would be uncovered in their omnibus fair work amendment.

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