Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

BURKE (—) (): For the information of members, I've confirmed that the Senate still has on foot its scheduled sitting tomorrow. At the rate they've been going on amendments, they will certainly require it. That means that when I suspend sittings later today, which will be shortly after the MPI—and the normal 4.30 cut-off won't apply; we suspended that standing order earlier today so the MPI will run its full course—the sittings will suspend with the intention that the bells ring for us to resume at 9 am on Saturday.

It's also the case that the Senate have amended the sitting program that we previously adopted, so I present the revised program of sittings for 2023. Copies of the revised program have been placed on the table, and I ask leave of the House to move that the program be agreed to.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the revised program of sittings be agreed to.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

on indulgence—I just wanted to clarify something with the Leader of the House for the benefit of members in terms of their preparations and plans et cetera. The advice that I have from my leadership team in the Senate is that this matter will be finalised tonight in the Senate. There is an ability within the Senate for the sitting to continue late tonight and for the conclusion of the matter to be arrived at, for the legislation to be passed, so that bill can come back in its final form to the House tomorrow.

In the normal course of events, it would take two to three hours for it to turn around from the Senate and for the notice to come back to this House. I think, on that basis, the most likely outcome is that this House will be in a position to deal with this matter at eight or nine o'clock tomorrow morning, Friday morning. I understand—and I respect it very much—that the Prime Minister has an important engagement in Western Sydney tomorrow afternoon or tomorrow night, whatever it is. I respect that, but this—

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a visit of state, as you know.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, this is able to be dealt in the morning. I don't understand the theatre of coming back Saturday morning. All I say is that the very clear advice, given that we are the ones running the debate in the Senate, is that it will be dealt with in the Senate tonight, and it'll be back here, if we want to come back, at eight o'clock or nine o'clock in the morning. We'll be in a position to deal with it, to finalise it and for people to go home and save the expense, frankly, of people having to fly back on Saturday morning, with the additional travel allowance. It doesn't make any sense.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The matter before the House is the revised sittings. That's the question we're dealing with.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just want to highlight to the House that this has been a rather chaotic process. The root cause of the difficulty is that the government tried to eliminate a week of estimates. That's the root cause of the difficulty. The government, supposedly committed to accountability and transparency, put up a sitting program that had fewer weeks for estimates than has historically been the case. This is a chaotic process. It's very unfortunate that the government was not able to manage this better.

Question agreed to.