Gordon Reid (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to highlight the damage, hurt and distress the former Liberal government's failed and unlawful robodebt scheme has had on the people of the Central Coast. The Australian people know that the former Liberal government's failed robodebt scheme was a shameful chapter in our nation's public history. It has been labelled by esteemed Australian legal professionals as a massive failure in public administration. But how exactly did we end up here and what is robodebt?

Robodebt was conceived in early 2015 and was a program to collect debts off vulnerable Australians using averaged Australian Taxation Office income information. Averaging took place when there were discrepancies between the incomes of Australians reported to Services Australia and those reported to the ATO. Over the program's life span, it collected $1.8 billion in debts from almost half a million vulnerable Australians. We understand now that these debts were recovered unlawfully, as stated in the final report of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme, headed by Catherine Holmes. We also know now that the impact was dreadful—the impact this ill-devised program has had on the Australian people, especially the 2,738 people living in my electorate of Robinson. It has been made terribly clear in the final report how those in the former government wanted to betray Australians receiving welfare. They wanted to create a narrative about those on welfare support being drags on the budget and a burden to the taxpayer.

We know that during their lives some Australians will need the support of the government, whether it's temporary while they pursue study or look for work, or permanently because of age, disability or disadvantage. By continuing this robodebt program and ignoring the official advice provided to the former government, Australians on welfare were unlawfully targeted, harassed and exploited. And what a legacy it has left. Almost half a million Australians were affected by this program and continue to struggle with the damage that it caused.

The former Prime Minister and social services minister should be ashamed of the role that he played in this program. As the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme identified, the member for Cook failed in his role as minister to make the necessary inquiries and fulfil his obligations according to his ministerial responsibilities.

Similar criticisms have been levelled against other former ministers responsible for oversight of this scheme. The final report said that the former human services minister provided 'unsatisfactory' responses about the information she was aware of about the legality of the scheme, implying that her evidence to the royal commission was disappointing and unhelpful. Additionally, former human services ministers abused their power and sought to 'distract' the public from the developing news about problems affecting the robodebt scheme or arising from the robodebt scheme. The former minister also failed to establish a comprehensive review of the scheme following reports of the suicides of two young men in which their parents say robodebt played a contributing factor. The report also criticised the former government services minister, who they state did not act as quickly as he professes to have in relation to ending this scheme.

What all of this says is that the former Liberal government was inept and could not manage this failed and unlawful scheme from start to finish. What has the current Liberal leader, the opposition leader, had to say about the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme? He said:

… this is nothing more than a political witch hunt …

What an absolute slap in the face for the people on the Central Coast that this scheme affected. I challenge the opposition leader to say this statement directly to the faces of the 2,738 people in my electorate of Robertson who were impacted by this failed scheme. Does the opposition leader believe that these Central Coast residents are not entitled to the information as to who was responsible for this scheme or why people were unlawfully targeted and unlawfully harassed?

I say to people of the Central Coast: the Albanese government will never abandon you like the former Liberal government did and continue to do. I look forward to the Albanese government acting on the 57 recommendations in the final report.

Sophie Scamps (Mackellar, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

CAMPS () (): I rise today to support the member for Jagajaga's motion regarding the robodebt scheme. Like the member for Jagajaga stated in her statement, I too commend the courage, leadership and bravery of victims, families, advocates and whistleblowers who continue to raise concerns about the robodebt scheme. I welcome the government's commitment to ensuring such a tragedy never happens again.

The Federal Court has described the scheme as a 'massive failure of public administration', incredibly strong language by judicial standards. Royal Commissioner Catherine Holmes SC concluded that robodebt was a 'crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal'. The Prime Minister said that it was a gross betrayal and a human tragedy. The CEO of the Australian Council of Social Service, Cassandra Goldie, described the scheme as an 'aggressive abuse of government power'.

In her nearly 1,000-page report resulting from the royal commission into robodebt, Commissioner Holmes said:

It is remarkable how little interest there seems to have been in ensuring the Scheme's legality, how rushed its implementation was, how little thought was given to how it would affect welfare recipients and the lengths to which public servants were prepared to go to oblige ministers on a quest for savings.

It is this last aspect of the commissioner's comments that I wish to focus on today—that is, the seeming lack of independent advice from the Public Service. It is very clear from the findings of the royal commission that issues of culture within the Public Service and between the Public Service and ministers played a large role in the robodebt disaster. There was either too much fear about speaking the truth or too great a desire to please ministers with good news. Either way, it is clear that a culture of providing frank and fearless advice did not exist, leading to bad decisions and ultimately disastrous consequences.

It will not be an easy culture to fix, but there is one simple way to improve it. It is something that I have been advocating for since I first came into this place. That is to bring transparency and accountability to the process of appointing people to significant Commonwealth and Public Service roles. Most recently, I proposed in this place amendments to the government's Public Service Amendment Bill. Those amendments were modest and sought to improve the process for the appointment of departmental secretaries. The amendments require the Public Service Commissioner to: publish selection criteria for the appointment; widely consult for candidates; rigorously consider candidates against the selection criteria; and prepare a shortlist of at least three candidates for the Prime Minister's consideration. If the Prime Minister decided to select someone for the position who was not on the shortlist, he or she would have to table a report naming that person and giving reasons as to why that person had the appropriate qualifications, skills and experience for the role within seven sitting days of the appointment. This is a straightforward process. Other than the requirement to table a report in parliament, it is a process that you could expect to see in recruitment being undertaken anywhere in Australia, both public and private. Ordinary Australians would not balk at it. Indeed, I believe they would demand it, especially for significant, highly-paid roles in the Australian Public Service.

For the Public Service Commissioner role—a role of such significance that it has been described as the guardian of an impartial Australian Public Service—my amendments proposed an additional requirement: that the Prime Minister consult with the Leader of the Opposition on the appointment. This is in recognition of the APS Commissioner's unique role, and it reinforces for the Australian public the independence and impartiality of the role. Unfortunately, the government did not adopt my proposed amendments. These amendments would have ensured greater transparency and independence of the selection process for major Public Service appointments.

The undermining of our democracy by the jobs-for-mates culture is something that ordinary Australians are angry about. So I urge the government to get serious about reforming the jobs-for-mates culture that pervades our democracy and the important institutions and bodies that underpin it.

Dan Repacholi (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Under the previous government, there was a lot that you could point to as examples of the worst of what governments are capable of. There were many times when I, and many Australians, looked at what the government of the day was doing and felt ashamed, disgusted or even angry. But the robodebt scandal takes the cake.

A government is meant to be there for the people. Instead, they implemented a scheme that caused harm to those in our community who are most vulnerable. It was a system that cared zero for humanity—a system that targeted people like the homeless and domestic violence victims.

What is even more unbelievable is that the government of the day knew the harm that they were causing but continued the scheme anyway. The warnings were mounting. The criticisms were constant. But the government continued to illegally raise debts against some of society's most vulnerable. These are not my words; these are the words used in the 990-page report which came from the royal commission into the robodebt scheme. This scheme was so disastrous that it needed an independent royal commission to look into the scheme and who was responsible for it. And it's not like there were only one or two mistakes made. In the end, the royal commission made 57 recommendations.

The scheme had a short life, but the damage was significant. Robodebt was first introduced in 2015 as a budget measure, and in late 2019 it was found to be illegal by the Federal Court. But four years was enough time to destroy around 6,700 lives in the Hunter electorate, and it put some into such a position that they felt their only option was to end their life.

The fact that something like robodebt could happen in a country like Australia is just shameful. The Minister for Government Services outlined this perfectly in the House recently when he spoke about the full impact of this scheme. We rightly think about those who were being targeted by robodebt, but we often forget about those others who were impacted: the frontline staff at Services Australia, who were left to cop the fallout of the scheme. They were the ones left dealing with distressed victims and hearing the heartbreaking stories about lives being torn apart. When they tried to do what any decent human would do and raise their concerns about the scheme, they were not listened to. In fact, they were given Code of Conduct violations for trying to do what was right.

The full extent of what this scheme did to far too many Australians is not something I want to discuss. But the man who knows full well this extent, more than any other person, the former Prime Minister, the member for Cook, sat in this chamber recently, with his typical smug grin on his face, laughing at the tragedy that he'd helped to inflict, when questions were asked about robodebt during question time.

This scheme should never have been implemented, and it went for far too long. In some ways, we are lucky that this scheme lasted for only a short time, but this was only the case because brave victims stood up and called it out. Brave people shared what was happening to them or what they saw happening to their families or loved ones around them. There were many whistleblowers and advocates who kept up the fight. Because of these people, because of their bravery, courage and leadership, there are people today in this country who were spared the pain that so many felt as a result of robodebt.

Over a year ago, Australia voted for change. They were fed up with the previous government, and it's easy to see why. When Australia voted for this current government, they voted to turn a page on how this country is governed. They voted for a government who truly cares about the people in this country. They voted for a government that will never inflict pain on its own people as the previous government did with robodebt. This government is committed to making sure that a tragedy like robodebt never happens again. We will look at and consider every single one of the 57 recommendations from the report, and we will absolutely respond to these recommendations. That is what the victims and the Australian people voted for and the change that they all deserve.

Zoe McKenzie (Flinders, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion moved by the member for Jagajaga. Over the winter recess, I went to visit one of the busiest Centrelink services on the Mornington Peninsula, located on High Street in Hastings. It was a privilege to meet with the team there, led by Lily Nikora, and to hear firsthand their experience in recent months. They described pensioners and families coming into a Services Australia office for the first time in their lives. These are proud, self-reliant, capable, hardworking people who now face a cost-of-living crisis unparalleled in recent times and now find themselves heading into an office to seek guidance, help, a sympathetic ear, reassurance and compassion. As the Centrelink team explained to me, for many it was their first time seeking any help from government at any level. The team at Services Australia was characterised by their patience, their kindness, their empathy, their humour, their respect for one another and their respect for their clients.

Over the last sitting break, I met with constituents in my electorate of Flinders who had navigated the so-called robodebt scheme. They came in to see me with handfuls—indeed, binders—full of papers: letters of demand; baffling calculations, each time different; bills to be paid; moneys to be extracted from their fortnightly payments; dates to be met; and moneys to be explained and justified. These letters stretched over years. The brave ones raised concerns and sought redress, first with the ATO and then with the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, and ultimately participated in a class action.

One of my constituents came in and told me her story, her constant struggle to explain what money she had earned and when. She joined the class action, and she succeeded in that class action, and she received 3c after years of stress and endurance. I'm in awe of her determination. She was fearless. It should be no surprise that she had been a member of the Australian Defence Force. Best of all, she kept her sense of humour about it, when most of us, if not all of us, would have long given up.

In conversation with those who serve our community via the Mornington Community Support Centre, I heard of another constituent who had worked hard over summer, as we often do on the Mornington Peninsula, and then gone off to study and who had come back from study to be greeted by a $7,000 debt. He then challenged that debt, only to be given an $11,000 debt in its place. He tried to fix it as best he could. He was studying overseas, and he couldn't access the online portal from Europe.

If ever we needed to learn a lesson that the sharp edges of algorithmic and artificial intelligence computation need a human overlay, this should be it. The integrity of Australia's welfare system is paramount. Our welfare system distributes more than $150 billion in payments every year, and fairness and compliance are critically important components of the system. However, it is now apparent that the expanded compliance system which was rolled out from mid-2016, now known as robodebt, is one of the poorest chapters in Australia's public policy history and one that sits at the feet of the coalition in its time of government. The thousand-odd pages of the full report of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme paint a picture of avoidable human suffering, of bureaucratic processes and of an attempt to reconcile the fast paced nature of digital transformation together with real life. The scheme had tangible consequences on people and especially on vulnerable people. It's important that we all, on both sides of this place, take the lessons from these errors and ensure that we do not revisit them.

The party I'm privileged to represent in this place is built on personal responsibility and has a record for high integrity in government. In reading the findings of the royal commission I find it out of sync with the coalition governments I have known and served in during the Howard and Abbott eras. I find it equally vastly out of sync with the Australian Public Service that I have known and worked with over the last three decades. I was perhaps incredibly lucky to grow up professionally in this building, working in partnership with public servants like Peter Shergold, Lisa Paul and Peter Varghese, and in various capacities outside the building with those now leading and improving the Australian and state based public services like Glyn Davis and Peter Coaldrake. It was always a culture of mutual respect, and there was an expectation that the Public Service could and would speak its mind frankly.

The Public Service I know would generate their own policy proposals and improve the policy proposals emanating from the political class. It was a true partnership and collaboration in which the public servants ultimately held the pen, the official record and the accountability that went with it. I commend my colleague and my friend the member for Menzies, Keith Wolahan, when he said in this chamber that we have a duty to have a strong and sustainable safety net. Any one of us may find ourselves in the position where we rely on it. Even if you don't rely on it, I like to know it's there for my fellow Australians when they need it, and the system should be one that is compassionate. In the light of tangible local examples, our responsibility as parliamentarians to learn from these mistakes is clear.

Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As we now know, the previous government set up a system that led to funds being withdrawn from hardworking Australians through the issuing of thousands of unlawful debts, which is now known as the robodebt saga. New analysis shows that in South Australia alone there were over 33,000 individuals who were caught up in the complexities of the robodebt scheme. To break it down further, in my electorate some of the suburbs, like Prospect, saw 309 victims, Walkerville in the electorate of Adelaide had 93, and within the Adelaide CBD there were 357 residents dealing with the repercussions. These are not just stats. They are real people who were trying to live their lives, and suddenly they were thrown into a nightmare. You can imagine the nightmare when you're thinking you are doing everything correctly, and you receive a letter saying that you owe X amount of dollars when you know you had done everything correctly. Australians innocent of wrongdoing found themselves subjected to threats of legal action and even the relentless pursuit of the former government's debt collectors.

I heard about this firsthand, as many members of parliament did. I took calls, and my office responded to calls and emails. We listened, we considered them and we took action. Our actions weren't just about shaping the future but about rectifying the past and assisting as many people as possible in their recovery from the emotional and financial strain that was unjustly placed on their lives by the former government. Our constituents were not the criminals, yet they were the ones that suffered. In effect, our neighbours, our friends and our constituents were all people that suffered. I recall 2016 and 2017 when worried and burdened pensioners walked through my door at the electorate office. These were people who had already lived through so much and now were grappling with the fear that, if they didn't pay what was claimed as their debt—a debt often wrongly calculated—the government would pause their lifeline, their pension. This is a great burden to put on people. How can you put someone through that kind of ordeal? How can you strip them of their sense of security through the very support they've earned through years of contribution? These questions should haunt the former government and anyone responsible for the decisions that led to such heartache and distress.

Even after seven or eight years I continue to have constituents seeking answers from my electorate office in Adelaide. I recently heard about a sad case from a father recounting an incident involving his family. Their daughter was wrongfully caught up not once but twice in this malicious scheme. Tragically, this family lost their beloved child as a result of the distress inflicted upon her. As members of parliament, many of us being parents or grandparents ourselves, we all hear a lot of pain and distress. But that family's reality was absolutely a hard one to stomach. We must be reminded that this matter was not just a financial or numbers issue. The pain caused harm for real-life human beings, and this pain was caused by the former government.

The robodebt scheme was an ordeal that Australians should never, ever have endured and should never endure again. Our constituents called out the systematic failure—a stance I commend, as they rightly deserve better. We heard Justice Murphy, the judge presiding over the case, approve the largest class action settlement in Australian history. Interestingly, when the idea of a royal commission was being proposed by the then opposition leader, it was just brushed aside as nothing more than a political witch hunt. We recall those debates and we recall those statements when we were in opposition.

In a different light, the current government is taking active steps to address the aftermath of the robodebt debacle, putting in place safeguards to prevent any potential recurrence of any similar scheme. The heart of the matter lies in the fact that the Australian people have entrusted us with their concerns and stories. It raises a legitimate question: how can we genuinely lend an ear to our constituents and then proceed to establish a system that inflicts even more hardships upon them? The former government may be okay with doing that, but I'm certain this government is not—

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order. I thank the member for Adelaide. The question is that the motion be agreed to. I call the member for Newcastle.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this private member's motion, put forward by my friend and colleague the member for Jagajaga, and I want to thank her for bringing this important motion to the House. This motion acknowledges the release of the report of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt Scheme. The robodebt scheme was found to be unlawful by the Federal Court in late 2019 and caused untold harm to vulnerable members of the Australian community. The royal commission into robodebt was an election commitment of the Albanese Labor government. Across 46 days of public hearings, the royal commission heard from more than 100 witnesses in what was utterly heartbreaking and disturbing evidence. Between July 2015, when the robodebt was ticked off by the then cabinet, and November 2019, when it was finally paused, approximately 435,000 Australians who relied on the social safety net were targeted by their very own government. In Newcastle, more than 4,000 customers were impacted by robodebt. They included registered nurse Paul Collins, who says his dealings with Centrelink during the robodebt scandal left him distrustful of government and mentally scarred.

Mr Collins was just one of the dozens and dozens of constituents who called my office for support, having been targeted by their own government in a cruel, unlawful scheme for money they did not owe and left powerless with no means of fighting back. Mr Collins was forced to go on sickness benefits for 16 weeks after breaking his wrist in 2012. He said he had told Centrelink as soon as he no longer needed the benefits, only to be hounded for weeks by the agency for a $5,500 debt he did not owe. Mr Collins said he was reduced to tears during one of the dozen or so phone calls he received from Centrelink demanding money and threatening to garnish his tax returns. He said:

"Even though I knew I'd done nothing wrong, it was just destroying me mentally.

"The way I was treated as a cheat and somebody who was trying to get money out of the government, for no valid reason, really hurt my core values and, you know, I do feel damaged by it still to this day."

Indeed, this scheme was counter to the core values of Australians and our belief in a fair and egalitarian society—a society that supports those when they require assistance and does so willingly, adequately and with respect. As the Prime Minister has stated, the robodebt scheme was a gross betrayal and a human tragedy. It was wrong. It was illegal. It should never have happened, and it should never happen again. The robodebt royal commissioner, Catherine Holmes, said:

Robodebt was a crude and cruel mechanism, neither fair nor legal, and it made many people feel like criminals.

…   …   …

The ill-effects of the Scheme were varied, extensive, devastating and continuing.

The commissioner found former Minister for Social Services, the member for Cook, had failed to meet his ministerial responsibility and had allowed cabinet to be misled about whether legislation was required to raise debts through a method known as income averaging. Instead, the former coalition cabinet—of which the current Leader of the Opposition, the member for Dickson, was a member—ticked off on the major decisions in relation to the scheme. After we announced the royal commission, the Leader of the Opposition had the gall to call it 'nothing but a political witch-hunt'. This blatant disrespect for the victims of the scheme and the devastating impact it continues to have on their lives is truly appalling.

I commend the courage, leadership and bravery of victims, families, advocates and whistleblowers who continue to raise concerns about the robodebt scheme. I commend the people of Newcastle for telling their stories—they had done nothing wrong and were hounded by their own government. While the royal commission has gone some way to bringing a voice, visibility and some justice to those impacted, we know that for others it is too late. This should never have happened, and it should never happen again. That is now the work of the Albanese Labor government. That's the job left and tasked to us—to make sure the Australian people know we will do everything we can to ensure this massive betrayal of the public never happens again.

Russell Broadbent (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't remember these issues being raised with the government on the floor of the House before the last election—or did I miss it? I don't remember it constantly coming up in the adjournment debates, the 90-second statements or anything that we heard. When did those opposite take the time to say that before this time? I think there are issues around robodebt that I'm personally ashamed of. I'm personally sorry that I didn't stand up at the time and say more than I did, but that's in the past. I just want to remember what was said whilst this debacle was carrying on over a number of years.

Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I can help the member out as to when this was raised and spoken about. It was every question time and most 90-seconders. I was elected to this place in 2019. I spoke about robodebt so many times. I spoke about Mel, a woman in my electorate who worked part time and who had a $5,000 debt raised against her—an unlawful robodebt that she didn't owe. I spoke about an email I received from Mel and her husband because they just couldn't get a review. They told me:

We have so little faith in the Department that we believe there is a strong possibility: no review will take place, they will ignore the evidence and claim money is owed regardless, that Mel's maternity payments will be taken, or all of the above. As a young family in the electorate of Dunkley, those payments will directly support and provide for our child.

This was raised over and over again in this parliament by the then opposition. It shouldn't have had to have been, but it was.

As Commissioner Holmes said, the beginning of 2017 was the point when robodebt's unfairness, probable illegality and cruelty became apparent. It should then have been abandoned or revised drastically. An enormous amount of hardship and misery, as well as the expense the government was so anxious to minimise, would have been averted. Instead, the path was taken to double down, to go on the attack in the media against those who complained and to maintain the falsehood that in fact the system had not changed at all. The government was, the DHS and DSS ministers maintained, acting righteously to recoup taxpayers' money from the undeserving. The member for Maribyrnong, Bill Shorten, prosecuted robodebt vociferously in this parliament. And no-one who sat here could possibly not know that he did that. But he shouldn't have had to. From 2017 onwards, the then government knew what was happening and turned a blind eye.

The member for Flinders gave a thoughtful speech, I would like to say, and acknowledged the problems with robodebt. One thing, though, that struck a bit of a chord with me was when she talked about the Liberal Party being the party of personal responsibility. I know that's something that the Liberal Party hold dear. But I just wonder how far that extends. It often seems to extend to the rhetoric about people receiving social security benefits who are unemployed and have issues in their lives. I think it extends to the member for Flinders. I think she does believe in personal responsibility and her speech showed that. But it certainly doesn't appear to extend to her colleagues who were in the cabinet of the former government when she wasn't here. Where's the personal responsibility having been taken by anyone in the cabinet who, from 2017 onwards, doubled down, went on the attack and continued robodebt? There has been none.

The commissioner says at page 102 that she 'rejects as untrue' Mr Morrison's evidence that he was told that income averaging as contemplated in the executive minutes was an established practice and a foundational way in which DHS worked. Where is the personal responsibility of the member for Cook? Where is the personal responsibility of the then Minister for Human Services, Senator Payne, whose evidence was described by the commissioner as 'a series of disparate and unsatisfactory answers' that 'would have the making of a child's nursery rhyme if it were not so serious'. Where was the personal responsibility of Mr Tudge, of whom the commissioner said:

Mr Tudge's use of information about social security recipients in the media to distract from and discourage commentary about the scheme's problems represented an abuse of that power.

Where was the personal responsibility of Christian Porter, who the commissioner said 'could not rationally have been satisfied of the legality' of the scheme, or of Stuart Robert, of whom the commissioner said it can't be accepted that the principles of cabinet solidarity required Mr Robert's to publicly support cabinet decisions whether he agreed with them or not because he knew they weren't true. There was no personal responsibility from anyone in that cabinet, including people who are still in this parliament today.

Andrew Charlton (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Two thousand, seven hundred and forty-five—that's how many people in my electorate were affected by robodebt. That's how many were taken advantage of by a callous coalition government. That's how many parents, children, brothers and sisters were victims of this illegal scheme.

One of the most precious things we have in our democracy is trust in government: trust that the government is competent; trust that the government is there on people's side; and trust at the most basic level that government is not there to harm people. One of the tragedies of this scheme is not just all of the human stories of those affected by it, but the impact it had on our democracy and on the belief that government is competent and on the side of people.

Mahatma Gandhi said that the measure of the greatness of a society is how it treats its most vulnerable people. In this sorry saga, we treated some of our society's most vulnerable people with egregious neglect—with a level of callousness and disrespect that calls into question the fundamental ethics of our democracy and our government. Beginning in 2015, 470,000 Australians fell victim to robodebt. It took $1.8 billion from the pockets of some of our most vulnerable Australians. It caused untold psychological, emotional and financial damage to families across the country. It eroded our trust in government, and it showed a deep disrespect for the most vulnerable people in our community.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned, and resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.