Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

  That standing order 31 (automatic adjournment of the House) be suspended for this sitting and that, after the Leader of the Opposition completes his reply to the budget speech, the House automatically stands adjourned until 10 am on Monday, 9 May 2016, unless the Speaker or, in the event of the Speaker being unavailable, the Deputy Speaker, fixes an alternative day or hour of meeting.

Just to explain to members who might like to know what is happening with the rest of the day, there are a couple of items that I wanted to deal with in this debate

The first is to explain that, obviously, we are suspending the adjournment so that the Leader of the Opposition can return to the House at 7.30 and do his reply to the budget. We will have a dinner break suspension from six till 7.30, as is traditional. The government has no intention of knocking off the MPI. We are very much looking forward to the member for Sydney's 150,000th MPI speech in this parliament, so that will go ahead. But there are some members who are still to give valedictories. I think the member for Holt and the member for Shortland—sorry, Bruce.

Mr Byrne interjecting—

I thought you were retiring. Are you running again?

Mr Byrne interjecting—

What are you running again for? The member for Bruce and the member for Shortland will give their valedictories. I should just let people know that the government will not make that six o'clock a hard time, so that the members who are yet to give their valedictories can continue—obviously not well past six o'clock, but they should not be shut down at six o'clock. Finally, on another matter, I would like to clear up that I did, unintentionally, verbal the member for Jagajaga this week and I apologise for doing so.

Question agreed to.