Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It's important to understand what has just happened. The government has moved—

Honourable members interjecting—

No, I'm entitled to be heard on the point of order.

An honourable member: It's not a point of order.

It is a point of order. The government moved a debate management motion, a gag, that said there were going to be four crossbench speakers and then it was going to be put to a vote. It was explicit in that motion that, notwithstanding the ram nature of it, there would be an explicit provision for crossbench members to move amendments and have those amendments voted on. There wasn't going to be debate—it was truncated and so on, and we opposed that—but the resolution contained an explicit commitment from the government that crossbench members could move amendments and vote on them.

When it came time for the member for Warringah to move her amendments, she sought the call but we just moved straight on. The amendments had been circulated exactly in accordance with what the government had proposed. So, if the motion under standing order 154—for the bill to be reconsidered in detail—is not allowed to be put, then the government will have just breached its own resolution that it put to the House, which gave the members of the crossbench the right to move an amendment and have it voted on. That is why the motion under 154 should be reconsidered. If not, I call on the government to commit to allowing what they said they would do in the motion they put to the House and allow the debate to be reopened so that the member for Warringah can move the amendment that she has circulated in good faith, exactly in accordance with the provision that the government asked for.

See this speech in context