Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That standing order 31 (automatic adjournment of the House) and standing order 33 (limit on business after normal time of adjournment) be suspended for this sitting.

Just to explain to the House, this is the cautionary motion that leaders of the House move at the end of a sitting session such as this one. I should inform the House that the Senate is considering the Asset Recycling Fund Bill. They have obviously dealt with the carbon tax package of bills today. The government has a number of other bills that we want passed by the Senate—or, if not passed—returned to the House in an amended form for us to consider whether we will accept those amendments. That obviously includes the Qantas sale bill, the land transport bill and the minerals resource rent tax bill. Progress is slow in the Senate—people will be shocked to hear!—but I think they are trying to finish these matters tonight. It is possible that they will finish them tonight, in which case we will probably sit quite late. In some instances there is talk of amending the bills but then if the amendments are not successful then allowing the bills through. But we cannot tell the Senate what to do. It is a matter of waiting to see what they do on these matters.

the Manager of Opposition Business in the House and I have been talking about trying to manage the timing and the schedule for the benefit of members and also for the government's agenda. We will make a determination sometime this evening—not too late—whether we sit till the early hours of the morning or whether we come back tomorrow and give the Senate the time it needs to do its work and then we will deal with their messages at some stage in the late morning and early afternoon tomorrow. That is an assessment we can make later today, but I wanted to inform the House that that was a situation we currently face.

I have just been told only moments ago that one of the bills that I thought they needed to wait for could well be dealt with expeditiously. Let us hope that that happens with some of the other bills as well.

Question agreed to.