Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my first speech in this place I said, 'History shows us that if work is to be dignified workers need advocates, because workers' rights did not fall from the sky.' History shows that, without unions, workers were broken in what William Blake called dark satanic mills. He understood that change would not come without a fight, and the best weapon in the fight for workers' rights is the trade union. This is why I am proud that the Labor Party was born in the fires of the union movement and fashioned on its anvils. It is something we should never seek to hide and something we should be proud of. Since I left high school, unions have protected me at work.

In that first speech, I also made a promise. I said that I would never forget what the unions have done for this country and that as long as I am here I will staunchly defend their right to defend their members. In rising today to speak against this legislation—the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill 2013 and the Building and Construction Industry (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2013—I am honouring that promise. The bill seeks to re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission. The ABCC was created in 2005 to investigate breaches of and to enforce federal industrial law in the building and construction industry. Labor opposes this legislation, which forces a return to the draconian ABCC, which is based on flawed modelling and whose proposed powers are extreme and unnecessary and compromise civil liberties. The bill means that the ABCC, if re-established, will have coercive powers that will compel ordinary workers to be subject to secret interviews, to be denied legal representation and to be threatened with imprisonment if the person subject to such coercive powers refuses to cooperate. The powers are excessive, undemocratic and unwarranted. As many of my colleague have pointed out before me, they are Orwellian, and not what Australians expect of our government in our democratic, 21st century society.

The bill extends the reach of the ABCC into picketing, offshore construction and the transport and supply of goods to building sites. The new powers aimed at stopping pickets include a 'reverse onus', requiring individuals to prove they were not motivated by industrial objectives to escape the maximum $34,000 penalty. The bill will extend the ABCC's jurisdiction offshore, to as far as Australia's exclusive economic zone or waters above the continental shelf. More significantly, it will encompass the transport or supply of goods to building sites, including resource platforms.

Prior to the election, those opposite promised that if they were elected they would not go back to the extreme measures of the Howard-era Work Choices industrial relations policies. They made this promise because they had to; they knew that the Australian people simply would not vote for them otherwise. They knew that the Australian people remembered that it was the now Prime Minister who in 2001, as Minister for Workplace Relations, called for the Cole royal commission into supposed criminality, fraud and corruption within the building and construction industry. However, after 18 months and $66 million of taxpayers' money, the commission failed to produce one single criminal conviction—because, as Labor asserted at the time and has continued to assert, the investigation of crime is a matter for the police.

Yet here we are, still in early days of 44th Parliament, and already those opposite are trying to strip away the rights of Australian workers, are trying to introduce Work Choices in a poor guise. And, to be fair, these bills are not exactly like Work Choices; no, the coalition has learnt something from its past. It has learnt that Australians are smart and will not stand for the deprivation of workers' rights. So the coalition is taking a different approach. Unlike Work Choices, which deprived workers of their rights across every industry, the coalition is now stripping away workers' rights one industry at a time, starting with the construction industry. Perhaps they think that if they remove workers' rights one industry at a time the Australian people will not notice—but they are wrong.

The rationale of those opposite for singling out one industry with special laws is flimsy at best. The ABCC's proposed powers are extreme and unnecessary and compromise civil liberties. If passed, this bill will mean that there will be restrictions on freedom to gather. It will allow self-incrimination and a reverse onus of proof. There will be no presumption of innocence; there will be intervention by government—by this government, the very government that has spent much of its first 100 days talking about the need to get government out of business and to cut government regulation and red tape.

And what of our international obligations? Now, I know those opposite have a great disdain for multilateralism, and they are not afraid to show it. But this is just going too far. As my colleagues have pointed out, the former Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act 2005 was founded by the United Nations International Labour Organisation to breach Australia's international obligations. It was in breach of our obligations as a member state and as a signatory to the    Freedom of Association and Protection of the Right to Organise Convention of 1947, the Right to Organise and Collective Bargaining Convention of 1949, and the Labour Inspection Convention of 1947. That act was found by the ILO supervisory bodies to breach Australia's international obligations in that it exposed building industry employees to penalties for taking industrial action in a wider range of circumstances than other employees, virtually rendering all forms of industrial action in the building and construction sector unlawful. There was an imposition of penalties and sanctions upon workers and unions that engaged in unlawful industrial action that was significantly higher than imposed on workers in other sectors. There were provisions in the act—

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I propose an intervention under standing order 66(a) to ask the member for Canberra to respond to the question: does the sort of thuggery we saw at the Grollo building site justify a stronger government response?

Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Canberra, do you accept the intervention?

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. The provisions of the code of practice contained restrictions on freedom of association and collective bargaining, and there were draconian monitoring and investigatory and enforcement powers for the ABCC, including the powers to enter premises, take possession of documents for as long as necessary and compulsorily interview any person for compliance purposes. These things were all found to be breaches of Australia's international obligations.

As I have mentioned, the great irony is that the proposed ABCC would mean more regulation, more red tape, more government intervention—

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I propose another intervention under standing order 66(a) to ask whether the sort of thuggery we saw at the Grollo building site breaches Australian domestic law.

Natasha Griggs (Solomon, Country Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Does the member for Canberra take the intervention?

Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. This would mean more government intervention from this government whose favourite catchcry is that they want to cut red tape. They are now introducing special regulation for one industry alone, without justification. Australia's industrial laws should be enforced in the building and construction industry in the same way as in any other industry. As Justice Wilcox said in his review of the previous ABCC laws:

There is no justification for selecting a different maximum penalty, for the same contravention, simply because the offender is in a particular industry.

As we know, Fair Work Australia and the Fair Work Ombudsman already have the capacity to deploy specialist investigators to deal with unlawful industrial action in this sector. If those opposite do not think the capacity of Fair Work Australia is sufficient, perhaps they should consider increasing its resources.

The fact is that Fair Work Building and Construction, established by Labor after we removed the previous incarnation of the draconian ABCC, has been a great success. The Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that industrial disputes in the building and construction industry are on average one-fifth of the rates seen under the Howard government. Labour productivity has increased over the last 10 quarters and on average is almost three times higher under Fair Work than under Work Choices. Fair Work Building and Construction has continued, and will continue, to outperform its predecessor, the ABCC. Fair Work Building and Construction already has sufficient powers to deal with unlawful behaviour in the industry. Fair Work Building and Construction is undertaking more investigations, concluding investigations, getting matters to court faster and recovering more money for underpaid workers in the industry, securing over $2 million in unpaid wages and entitlements for more than 1,500 workers.

Under the Howard government's ABCC, workplace fatalities in construction peaked at 48 deaths in 2006 and 51 deaths in 2007, making them the worst two years for deaths in construction in the last decade. Following the abolition of the ABCC in 2012, some 30 deaths were reported, the lowest number of deaths in the past 10 years. Over the same period, the incidence rate of serious injury claims in the construction industry fell by 17 per cent from 23.0 serious claims per 1,000 employees in 2005-06 to 19.1 in 2009-10.

The title of these bills would have you believe this was an exercise in productivity, but this is also not the case. These bills serve one purpose alone, and that is to return to the coercive powers used to intimidate workers and attack unions at the cost of workers' safety and legal entitlements. Tony Abbott has claimed the former ABCC led to some $6 billion per year in productivity savings and cost reductions for consumers in the commercial construction sector. The figure comes from one of a series of reports compiled by Econtech—now Independent Economics—into whether the ABCC and its predecessor body, the Building Industry Taskforce, boosted productivity. The reports were initially commissioned by the ABCC at public expense and were later regularly recommissioned by Master Builders Australia as a tool to push for the reinstatement of the ABCC. The latest report commissioned by the MBA has the productivity savings figure at $7.5 billion.

The research has been widely discredited as being based on faulty or misleading premises. On 28 August 2013, the Fairfax federal politics fact checker found Abbott's claims to be mostly false. The ABS provides three widely accepted measures of productivity: labour productivity, which is the ratio of volume of output produced to the volume of labour employed; capital productivity; and multifactor productivity. However, the method used in the Econtech report was to compare the costs of completing standard tasks in the largely non-unionised housing sector against the more unionised commercial construction sector, as though union density is the only feature that distinguishes the two sectors. Unsurprisingly, the report's systematic finding is that there are significantly larger costs of completing specified tasks in the commercial construction sector than in the housing sector, which they attribute to unionisation.

There is an old saying: 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it,' and the coalition would do well to heed this advice. Fair Work Building and Construction has proven year after year that not only can it successfully deal with unlawful behaviour in the industry but also it supports a safer workplace and a safer industry. The fact that those opposite are ignoring this evidence demonstrates that their motives in trying to re-establish the ABCC are purely political. This is not about improving productivity, this is not about creating safer workplaces, this is not about preventing illegal industrial action, this is about the coalition's anti-union agenda. This is about demonising the construction industry, demonising unions and demonising their members. It is about stripping away workers' rights in any way they can, and Labor will not stand for it.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What we are seeing here today is that the party of Work Choices is back in government. They cannot wait to reintroduce the harsh regime of Work Choices, and this is the first taste we are seeing of it. They have put before the parliament a bill which brings back the Australian Building and Construction Commission which, in government, Labor abolished, keeping a commitment to the Australian people from the 2007 election. The history of the building industry since the Australian Building and Construction Commission was abolished has been an increase in productivity and a reduction in days lost in the building industry. That is the important thing to notice.

No evidence has been put before the parliament by this government that in any way supports the return that they are proposing with this bill to a harsh and oppressive regime. It would impose an almost police-state form of regulation on the building industry. It is very similar to the bill that was before the House yesterday, the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill. With that bill, similarly, the government is seeking to introduce anti-union measures which are harsh and repressive, and which are in no way justified by evidence by anything that is actually happening in the real world of building sites.

A number of previous speakers in this debate have noted the Australian Bureau of Statistics data but it is worth repeating. That data shows that the rate of industrial disputation in the building and construction industry is now, on average, less than one-fifth of the rate seen under the previous coalition government. It shows that labour productivity has increased over the last 10 quarters and that in the building industry it is, on average, almost three times higher under the fair work legislation than it was under Work Choices.

But of course one will read nothing of that kind of statistic in the minister's second reading speech, and one will hear nothing of the news from the real world in any of the ideologically driven speeches from those opposite. Instead, in pursuit of their anti-union agenda, they are producing a form of regulation which is excessive, undemocratic, unwarranted and extraordinarily harsh in comparison to regulation under the previous form of the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

Let's recall that, the last time the party of Work Choices was in government, the present Prime Minister as minister instituted the Cole royal commission, in 2001. That was a royal commission into supposed criminality. It was said to be investigating fraud and corruption within the building and construction industry. That is what it was supposed to be investigating, despite the fact that the then Australian Building and Construction Commission had no role in investigating crime—let alone organised crime, which is, obviously, a matter for police. After 18 months and $66 million of taxpayers' money—that is what that expensive political stunt, that witch-hunt that the present Prime Minister put in place when he was minister, cost—the Cole royal commission failed to produce a single criminal conviction.

Now, in the 44th Parliament, Mr Abbott is continuing his expensive attacks, including this particular attack on workers' rights and entitlements. It is a bitter irony that, on the day after the Australian Attorney-General, Senator Brandis, gave a new reference to the Australian Law Reform Commission—a reference to identify provisions in Commonwealth legislation that, to quote from the senator's press release, 'unreasonably encroach upon traditional rights, freedoms and privileges'—we have this bill before the parliament. It is hard to imagine a greater encroachment on, to use the Attorney-General's words, 'traditional rights, freedoms and privileges'. In the terms of reference that the Attorney-General has given to the Australian Law Reform Commission, he directs the Law Reform Commission to inquire into laws that:

And so on. The bill before the House does all of these things. It is an abrogation of traditional rights, freedoms and privileges.

I hope that the Attorney-General is participating in some kind of cabinet process, because it appears that, he has turned a blind eye—despite his purported concern, with this reference to the Australian Law Reform Commission—to protecting 'traditional rights, freedoms and privileges'. In fact, this Attorney-General could not care less when it comes to this legislation that is proposed for the building industry. In this bill we have unfettered coercive powers, secret interviews, and imprisonment for people who do not cooperate with the secret interviews and the investigations to be conducted in secret by this proposed Australian building commission. People interviewed, under this bill, will have no right to silence. People interviewed will have no right to be represented by a lawyer of their choice.

Let's bear in mind the words of the now Prime Minister, Mr Abbott, before the election. He often used to refer to his workplace policies as 'returning the industrial relations pendulum back to the sensible centre'. Is it the 'sensible centre' to deny the right to silence? Is it the 'sensible centre' to deny people the right to be represented by a lawyer of their choice? Is it the 'sensible centre' to give unfettered coercive powers to a Commonwealth instrumentality, to give them the power to conduct secret interviews and to prosecute and imprison people who refuse to cooperate with this Australian building commission?

Mr Abbott promised to revive the Australian Building and Construction Commission, but he has broken his pledge, because this legislation goes far further than the Australian Building and Construction Commission, which was replaced by Fair Work Building and Construction with a far more balanced regime by the former, Labor government. This Prime Minister has broken his promise, because this legislation extends the reach of the Australian Building and Construction Commission that is proposed here into picketing, offshore construction, and the transport and supply of goods to building sites. That is not a revival. It is, in fact, a re-establishment of a new body with very significantly broader powers than its 2005 incarnation. We are not getting, here—again to use the Prime Minister's words—a 'tough cop on the beat'. We are getting an unnecessary workplace bully.

In the second reading speech that the minister offered to this House there was an attempt to justify the return of the Australian Building and Construction Commission by referring to a recent report compiled by the consulting firm Independent Economics—or Econtec, as it was formerly known. You would have to say of this firm that it has a very long history of turning out reports that attack workers. It has a very long history of turning out reports that attack unions, all the time pretending to demonstrate some kind of path to improved productivity.

The member for Sturt failed to disclose, in his second reading speech, that this same consulting firm once had the rare distinction of producing modelling that was so inaccurate that former Federal Court judge Murray Wilcox described the work as deeply flawed and recommended that it ought to be totally disregarded. When former Federal Court judge Murray Wilcox was making those comments he was making them about a report by Econtec that was in the very same area as the material on which the minister is now purporting to rely. The member for Sturt has a blind eye not only to the flaws in this report but to all of the evidence about current conditions in the building industry and the fact that the current building industry regulatory arrangements are working well.

As with the legislation that was brought before the parliament yesterday—the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2013—this second reading speech and all of the government's material purporting to support the re-establishment of the Australian Building and Construction Commission completely ignores the present regime. What ought to be clear to anybody—to any properly informed observer of the Australian building and construction industry—is that the Fair Work Building and Construction Division established by Labor already has sufficient powers to deal with any unlawful behaviour in the industry. The Fair Work Building and Construction Division has, in its history, outperformed—and it will continue to outperform—its predecessor, the Australian Building and Construction Commission. Fair Work Australia Building and Construction Division already has a full suite of appropriate investigative and prosecution powers to deal with any unlawful behaviour in the building and construction industry, whether that behaviour is by employers or employees, by unions or contractors. We have, in Fair Work Australia, a well-established, well-resourced, well-staffed body, which is already undertaking more investigations, concluding investigations, getting matters to court faster and recovering more money for workers in the industry.

Mr Nikolic interjecting—

The member for Bass should keep quiet. In particular, the member for Bass should keep quiet about matters which are before the court. He is behaving in a disorderly fashion. Mr Deputy Speaker, you should discipline him.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Isaacs, I will determine what is inappropriate and disorderly conduct in this House. If the member wants to continue he will listen to me. The member for Bass will not interject across the chamber and cause division in the House.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, for the assistance that you have given to the member for Bass, who, I appreciate, perhaps may not know better.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not need your advice on that, either.

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Fair Work Australia Building and Construction Division has secured over $2 million in unpaid wages and entitlements for more than 1,500 workers. Those are breaches that the Australian Building and Construction Commission never focused on. I come back to conditions, because this is what we should be hearing about from the government. We should be focused on evidence about conditions in the industry. The evidence from the industry—I will repeat it because it bears repeating—is that industrial disputation in the building and construction industry is on average less than one fifth of the rates seen under the previous coalition government. Labor productivity has increased over the last 10 quarters and, on average, is almost three times higher under Fair Work Building and Construction than under Work Choices.

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek to intervene under standing order 66A.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member will not take the intervention?

Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I reject the intervention. Under Fair Work Australia, the rates of industrial disputes are on average about one-third of the rate we saw under the previous coalition government and in the building and construction industry they are around one-fifth of the rate we saw under the previous coalition government. This is at a time when more Australians than ever before are covered by enterprise agreements, which shows that the vast majority of the agreements are made without any industrial action at all. What we see in this bill is the determination of the Abbott government to take Australia back to the failed Australian Building and Construction Commission. That shows that the return to Work Choices is just below the surface of this government. And a very poor disguise this bill is, indeed.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Firstly, I acknowledge the great contribution of the member for Isaacs, despite the irreverent interventions from the member for Bass. I listened intently also to the contribution of the member for Canberra.

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I am entitled in this House, under 66A to make an intervention. Referring to it as 'irreverent' is, I believe, not called for.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is not a point of order.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For the edification of the member for Bass: we can say what we like about your interventions; they are unwanted and, on most occasions, they are inappropriate. We do not have to take them, and we will not.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lingiari will return to the bill before the House.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He is only a new member, Mr Deputy Speaker; he has got to learn the ways of the place. The culture of the organisation is a bit different from where he came from.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lingiari will return to the bill before the House.

Mr Frydenberg interjecting—

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Young Josh wouldn't know. The Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill 2013 and the Building and Construction Industry (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2013 will re-establish the Australian Building and Construction Commission and its investigative powers which restrict people's basic democratic rights. The shadow Attorney-General, in his contribution, made very clear how this legislation impinges on the rights of Australian workers. This is not just about their right of entry; it is about their right to be represented and their right to remain silent. This is, in my view, a gross intervention. This legislation is pernicious in its intent—of that, there can be no doubt.

Mr Frydenberg interjecting—

The member opposite says that is not right.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It came out of the Cole royal commission.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Cole royal commission? It had not one single prosecution in 18 months and cost $66 million. It was stimulated by the now Prime Minister and it had zero outcomes. And then they had the ABCC. What do we know about the ABCC? Let me quote from Professor David Peetz. He says:

The culture of the ABCC is not and has never been impartial. It has concerned itself almost exclusively with transgressions by unions, or by employers who have facilitated or acquiesced to transgressions by unions.

He went on to say:

If it is going to haul before the courts a union member who refuses to tell them about what happened at a meeting to discus safety breaches by the employer, it must also haul before the courts the employers who breach the safety laws in the first place.

This is no trivial matter. There were 36 fatalities in the construction industry in 2007-08, twice as many as in 2004-05, immediately before the ABCC commenced operations in late 2005. Under the ABCC, construction became the industry with the highest number of deaths. As observance with occupational safety tends to be lower where unions are weaker, this trend is not surprising. But nor should it be allowed to continue.

Let us be clear: this is about taking a knife to the Australian workers movement, the trade unions in this country, for protecting the rights of workers. It has got nothing to do with productivity.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's about the economy, Warren!

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's about being pernicious, stupid! But you are very clear about it.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, the member opposite just engaged in a very derogatory statement, and it would serve the House if he apologised.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was engaged in a conversation in my left ear and did not hear it. But it would help the House, as the member for Kooyong suggested, if the member for Lingiari withdrew that statement. I did not hear it, but I would ask him in good faith to withdraw that statement—and not replace it with another one.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw the statement, and I would make the observation that stupidity is not a defence.

Josh Frydenberg (Kooyong, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Neither is ignorance a defence.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Lingiari, as you are a former minister I would expect a very high standard from you. I would ask you to return to the bill for the House.

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We know what this is about. It is about attacking the rights of Australian workers and their organisations. The ABCC's proposed powers are extreme, unnecessary, undemocratic, and compromise civil liberties. I have been in this place a fair length of time and I would have to say that, when we see the way the government is now treating Australian workers, we need to be very concerned. We have seen what they have done about BHP. We know what they have done in Gove—absolutely nothing. Let me be very clear: these people do not care about the interests of Australian working people, and this is an example of them attacking the right of Australian working people to be properly represented by trade unions.

Andrew Nikolic (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on an intervention to ask whether the sort of thuggery that we saw at the Grollo site represents—

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Bass will resume his seat and the member for Lingiari will resume his seat. I will deal with the intervention first. The member for Lingiari does not want to take the intervention?

Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. I said no.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Bass, there is no intervention.

Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, on a point of order: the member for Bass has done this now on a number of occasions. Standing order 66A says very clearly that the idea of this new standing order is that you stand up and ask whether an intervention is going to be taken by the Speaker and, if the speaker says yes, you get a chance to state your question. While I have been sitting in the chamber, on three occasions the member for Bass has abused standing order 66A. Either the Manager of Government Business has not given a lesson to these new members or they are wilfully ignoring it.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take the point of order from the member for Port Adelaide. Those in the chamber ought to take note of that fact, otherwise in future they will find themselves disciplined while I am in the chair. The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later. The member for Lingiari will have leave to continue his remarks.