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

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the order of the day for the consideration of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Strengthening Protections Against Discrimination) Bill 2023 being called on immediately.

For the benefit of the House, I will just explain what's going on here. As is well known, there were four bills that were passed in the Senate last week, all of which deal with important matters concerning worker safety and worker rights. Those bills have been—

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

Order. I'll get the Manager of Opposition Business to pause so I can hear from the Leader of the House.

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

I appreciate the first two suspensions were dealing a matter before the House. We're now dealing with suspensions for matters the House had an opportunity to deal with and chose not to. It might not be this one, but at some point do we get to the point where continued suspensions one after the other start to be seen as frivolous? I don't know if that discretion is within the chair or not. I've not seen an occasion where we've had three suspensions in a row before. I suspect we might get to four. I don't know if we're going to be here all day with continued suspensions, but there is a point when, particularly now we're dealing with something that was before the House earlier today and the Manager of Opposition Business chose to not deal with—to be dealing with suspensions of standing orders the House decided to not deal with this very day is starting to seem pretty extreme.

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

On the point of order, Speaker, I acknowledge suspensions of standing orders are not to be moved lightly. I think the case for this suspension of standing orders to be moved is a very strong one because, when you announced the message that the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Strengthening Protections Against Discrimination) Bill 2023 had been returned from the Senate, at that point there was complete silence. I think it was entirely reasonable for the opposition and indeed all parliamentarians to expect that at that time the Leader of the House would do exactly as he did with the first bill that was the subject of a message coming from the other house. At that point he stood to move that the second reading be made an order of the day for the next sitting, and it was in reliance on that expectation that the opposition did not immediately jump. I can inform the House it's the opposition's intention to move this suspension of standing orders and one further suspension of standing orders. This suspension of standing orders relates to the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Strengthening Protections Against Discrimination) Bill 2023.

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

I'll rule on the point of order. Whilst I appreciate the work of the House and the leader's point, it looks like we're going back in time in dealing with things the House has dealt with. I will allow the suspension to continue. But I understand there are other matters before the House, and I just ask, where possible, that we expedite the work of the House as quickly as possible.

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

Certainly the opposition is always eager to engage in a constructive fashion to expedite the work of the House. Indeed the very substance of this suspension of standing orders motion gives effect to that objective of the opposition, because the motion that is before the House would, if passed, allow the order of the day for the consideration of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Strengthening Protections Against Discrimination) Bill 2023 to be called on immediately.

Let me just for the benefit of members remind us of the context in which the House is considering this matter. Four bills were passed by the Senate last week. They deal with a range of matters going to the safety, rights and position of workers under the industrial relations framework. The opposition was pleased to support those bills in the Senate, and it was certainly our expectation, as I think it would be the expectation of any reasonable Australian looking at these facts and circumstances, that there would similarly have been an opportunity to bring these matters on for debate and have them voted on immediately this afternoon. The government could very readily have done that, and we could have by now indeed have dealt with all four of them. By doing that we could have materially advanced the position in relation to the rights of workers in circumstances where they're being made redundant from a business which is eligible for the small business redundancy exemption in circumstances which I think are widely agreed to be inappropriate—that is to say, it's managed to come under the threshold by virtue of insolvency. We would have materially advanced the rights and position of workers who are in the very difficult position of having been subject to domestic violence, with that potentially impacting the way that they are dealt with in a workplace context. We would have materially advanced the position of workers who are at risk of silicosis, and we would have materially advanced the position of first responders.

Because of what the Senate has done in passing four bills addressing these four matters, which are uncontentious, uncontroversial and supported by the opposition and, indeed, by the government—as is evident from the many passionate speeches that have been given and from the fact that they're included in a bill that the government has brought forward—and, as I am advised, by many on the crossbench, we could have dealt with these matters very quickly and efficiently. But, rather confusingly, what the government has chosen to do is reject this opportunity to deal promptly with these matters.

What the opposition is seeking to do, in each of the suspension of standing orders motions that we have moved, is to give all members of this House the opportunity to vote in a way that indicates whether or not they're supportive of bringing these matters on so that affected workers can have their position improved immediately. That is the reason the opposition is moving this particular suspension of standing orders, just as it is the reason that we have moved the other suspensions and intend to move one further suspension of standing orders: because it is important that members of this House have the opportunity to vote on these bills. These bills are before us. They could be considered immediately. They were considered and dealt with very rapidly in the Senate, and the opposition certainly believes that there is an opportunity here in the House to deal with these matters very rapidly.

The specific bill that is the subject of this suspension of standing orders motion deals with the problem of family and domestic violence. Under existing arrangements in the Fair Work Act, an employee who is subjected to family and domestic violence is not necessarily protected from employer adverse action within the workplace unless it is connected to the exercise of the employee's workplace rights or it can be argued to be protected by another attribute such as sex. The fact that an employee has been subject to family and domestic violence, therefore, could be a source of discrimination within the workforce—for example, resulting in a reduction of work hours or a demotion.

The very sound policy reasons as to why this matter needs to be dealt with as quickly as possible are undoubtably what motivated the Senate to pass a bill which had the effect of taking these uncontroversial provisions, which are widely supported across the political spectrum, and putting them into a standalone bill. That's now been passed by the Senate, and there's an opportunity for the House to vote on that bill as well. That is certainly something that we in the opposition would be supportive of. It is for that reason that I have moved the suspension of standing orders in the way that I have.

Again I make the point that if the Leader of the House had conducted himself in accordance with the reasonable expectation on the part of all members, having regard to the words he caused to be included in the daily program, then this less direct method would not have been necessary. But, the circumstances being as they are, this is the next best option for the House. I commend, therefore, this motion for suspension of standing orders to the House.

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

Is the motion seconded?

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I stand to second the motion to suspend standing orders. The minister at times raises very valid points about process, conventions and standing orders in relation to what's happened today. Some of the things that he raised, I'm sure, are very relevant. I'm sure he will also say, as he did when we moved the previous suspension of standing orders, that the workers want all of the elements of the bill passed. In relation to the PTSD provisions, he said that the workers not only want that but also want all elements of the larger omnibus bill, the closing loopholes bill, to be passed. He may well be correct with some first responders; he may not be correct with other first responders, but I take the point.

The minister may also raise the point: 'It's all well and good that you think it was important, but you didn't do it.' You could say that about any new government in relation to any bill that they bring forward. To compliment the minister on his point that we didn't do it—good point—but we support the minister in what he's trying to do in certain elements of this bill. On this element of the bill—strengthening protections against discrimination—we support him. He may well say that the people who are supportive of that part of the bill want the whole of the bill supported. What is blatantly clear, and I think the minister has almost said this publicly, is that the whole of this bill is going to be a multi-month process that is going to take us well into next year. The Senate have already reflected that with the way they've broadcast how they're going to treat this bill when it gets there. What we have had is good news. What we've had in the last week or so is good news from the Senate, saying that they are going to support four elements of the bill without amendment. They're happy with how the minister has constructed and drafted it.

The Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Strengthening Protections Against Discrimination) Bill 2023 is one of those. I'll reiterate what that part of the bill is. It adds the experience of family and domestic violence to the protected attributes for discrimination of employment. We agree with that. I know we didn't do it, but we agree with it. Well done to the minister for bringing it forward into his larger omnibus bill. We agree with this, as the Senate has reflected.

What I would say to the minister on process, practices and standing orders is that he may well be correct on some of those, but not on others. I acknowledge his points about the processes of the parliament. I acknowledge that no other previous government, including previous Labor governments, has done this. He has brought through four areas, including this one about discrimination. We acknowledge that and we support that. I would say, as I have about the other bills that we've looked at today, that the people in the community who may be affected by such discrimination in their workplace would be, I think, willing the government—those people may want the whole of the bill to go through; they may not—to put this through today. What that means, like the other four aspects, is that if this legislation went through today, people who need this protection within their workplace won't have to wait for many months. They won't have to wait until we see how the larger omnibus bill goes through the Senate, and other things, next year, which will be protracted and take a long time.

I ask the minister to look at this as a goodwill gesture. It might not look like it as far as parliamentary process goes, but I ask him to look at it as a goodwill gesture, because this means that the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Strengthening Protections Against Discrimination) Bill 2023 could go through this House today and bring in these protections for the relevant workers.

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

I have a few things. First of all, I don't think the motion that's been moved will be carried, so this may not have an impact. Even if carried, it would potentially have no effect because what the Manager of Opposition Business has moved is to suspend standing orders that would prevent the order of the day for the consideration of the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Strengthening Protections Against Discrimination) Bill 2023 being called on immediately.

Why, if that were carried, would it have no effect? There is no order of the day. He's described it as an order of the day in the motion. At the end of my speech, we will vote on that. I don't think it will be carried, so it won't actually matter, and certainly not carried by an absolute majority. But if it were to be carried, I'm not sure what we'd do, because it refers to bringing on an order of the day that doesn't exist. Not only does the order of the day not exist today; because the Manager of Opposition Business has handled this today in a way that no Manager of Opposition Business has handled these issues in the history of the parliament, none of these four bills will be on the Notice Paper for tomorrow either or for the day after. When he says 'the normal process', where the Leader of the House would often stand up and take the call: what would happen would be that Christopher Pyne would be here and I'd be over there, and we'd both be jumping trying to get the call at the same time.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The good old days!

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

Yes, it was fun! They were fun debates. I'm glad Christopher is no longer in this job but I am sad he is no longer in the parliament; I'll acknowledge that!

We'd both jump because, if you jumped and you got to be the one to move that it be made an order of the day, that meant you had carriage of the bill—so we'd each want that. Christopher would usually jump and be first, as Leader of the House, and he'd get the call, and then it'd go onto the Notice Paper under government business. The only person who beat him was not me jumping from there; it was the member for Melbourne jumping from up there, on the anticorruption commission private members' bill that came across. As a result, the second reading speech came on for debate and the second reading was moved by the member for Melbourne.

I am struggling to work out how we got here, because I'm not sure anyone other than the current Manager of Opposition Business could have achieved this one. He complained we could have dealt with this quickly. Well, we spent an hour and a half on speeches being made by opposition members about why this had to be dealt with quickly, and, because the full hour and a half was used up, the question didn't get put at all. I didn't make the Manager of Opposition Business do that. The opposition members looked really proud they were holding all this up. What they were holding up was that first message ever making it onto the Notice Paper.

In those speeches they complained about the motion I had moved. So, the second time, I didn't come into the chamber to move a motion, presuming that what would probably happen is what used to happen with Christopher Pyne and myself ready to jump, and that the opposition would jump. They didn't. There was a long pause. No-one jumped. As a result, the second of the messages, the second bill, will never appear on the Notice Paper. I did not make that happen. Ordinarily, any Manager of Opposition Business would jump and would move the resolution. If you check with the clerks in advance or if you check on the blue—he has been quoting this—the motion to move that the second reading be made an order of the day for the next sitting is there; what you have to move is actually there. But the Manager of Opposition Business, on the second message, didn't move anything, so the second bill doesn't get on the Notice Paper.

We then had a long period of points of order between the Manager of Opposition Business and myself. During that long period of points of order back and forth, you, Mr Speaker, made it clear to the Manager of Opposition Business what he would have to move and what the procedure was. Had he moved that, the bill would be on the Notice Paper tomorrow and there would be an order of the day, and it would be possible in subsequent days, if they wanted to put pressure on the government, to move to bring on this bill that was on the Notice Paper that was an order of the day, and they'd be able to list what number it was and the suspension and have the debate to put pressure on the government. He was specifically told by you, Mr Speaker, what he had to move. But he gets a rush of blood to the head and instead moves a suspension of standing orders. So he gets to have the vote and the debate but he could have moved what the Speaker had said, got it onto the Notice Paper and then moved the suspension, and the bill would have remained in front of the House on an ongoing basis through the Notice Paper. But then, during the whole 25 minutes of that suspension debate and the period for the division, there was no moment where the Manager of Opposition Business checked what the impact of this particular tactic was. So the third one doesn't get on the Notice Paper.

All he had to do to get the fourth message, the fourth bill, onto the Notice Paper was say out loud the words that are on the blue that had been suggested by the Speaker. What does the Manager of Opposition Business do? He stands up and moves another suspension. So we end up with a situation where you have four private member's bills that come from the Senate to here, and, through actions entirely within the agency of the Manager of Opposition Business, where all he had to do was read out loud the dozen or so words that were there printed in front of him—he refused to do that and made sure that, as far as the procedures of the House are concerned, after today, none of these bills are before the House. The only way for them to be introduced is to put one forward for private member's business and give notice of it, and I guess it comes up in private member's business on the Monday when we're back after next week off. Why anyone would do this, I have no idea.

I am regretful to some members of the crossbench that approached me in good faith about moving suspensions on this issue. I always give honest procedural advice when asked questions like that. I said the logical time to move a suspension would be the following day because then you've got it on the Notice Paper. What never occurred to me when I was talking to the crossbench about waiting until the second day was that there would be no second day; that the Manager of Opposition Business would take all the work that Senator Cash had done in the Senate and refuse to follow procedure for any one of the four bills.

So now we're going through one suspension after the other to be able to have a debate so he can tell his side he fought the good fight—even though the only reason this has been stuffed up completely is that the Manager of Opposition Business decided to wing it on the first time this term that private member's bills make it across from the Senate. It's a big deal when this happens. It doesn't happen that often. You go to the Clerk, you talk to the Speaker, you read the procedure, you work out the rules and you don't make a mess of it. Now the only thing he will have achieved is wasting an hour and a half this morning and I don't know how long this afternoon, when we could have been debating the bill that was already before the House that deals with these exact provisions and getting that done.

There's a long speaking list. Having lost this time, I advise the House now that I'll be putting something on the Notice Paper for us to have some extra nights to make sure we fit everybody in. I won't be cutting the speaking time, but I'm going to have to provide extra time for the House because we basically have wasted a day because four messages that could have been dealt with in about five minutes have instead been catapulted from the Senate to here and then to oblivion by the design, for reasons I will never understand, of the Manager of Opposition Business. That's where we are. The government will vote against this suspension, although, as I said, even if it were carried, it refers to an order of the day that does not exist.

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

The question before the House is that the motion be agreed to.

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

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Small Business Redundancy Exemption) Bill 2023 being called on immediately, and debate on the question that the amendment moved by the Manager of Opposition Business, that the bill be considered immediately, continuing.

What we have seen today is repeated attempts by this government to avoid dealing with bills that have come from the Senate. We have four bills that have come from the Senate. The first of these was the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Small Business Redundancy Exemption) Bill 2023. The opposition believes that this bill ought to be brought on immediately so that it can be debated as quickly as possible and voted upon. The reason we believe that this is necessary is that the matters within this bill are matters that are not contentious. They are agreed. They're certainly supported by the government, as is evident from the fact that they're included in the governments so-called closing loopholes bill. They are supported by the opposition. They are supported, I'm advised, by many of the crossbench, and, of course, they were supported by the Senate, which has moved and passed this bill. There is an opportunity before this House to proceed, bring this matter forward and vote upon it. That is what the opposition believes ought to happen.

We believe that ought to happen for all of the reasons that have been argued by the Leader of the House and by Labor members in various speeches within this place and externally when they've spoken about the importance of this legislation, the small business redundancy exemption bill. We've seen repeated attempts by this government and by the Leader of the House to avoid this House dealing with these bills. We've had a host of explanations from him as to why it's not his responsibility and why he shouldn't have put his hand on the tiller to move that the House deal with this bill. These are matters which could be and should be dealt with by this House immediately. That would be entirely consistent with the bills passed by the Senate, and it would be consistent with what I'd suggest Australians expect people in this House to do where there is agreement between the government, the opposition and crossbenchers—in this case on matters dealing with the circumstances of employees of historically large businesses which by reason of insolvency, under effectively a technical provision as it exists today, fall within the scope of the small business redundancy arrangements. Presently the position under the law is that employers in those circumstances are able to take advantage of a provision which deals with redundancy for employees of smaller businesses. I think it is widely accepted across the parliament that this is a technicality. I think it is widely accepted across the parliament that this is a provision or this is a circumstance in which the ordinary redundancy provisions ought to apply and the small business redundancy exemption, which is there for a particular set of circumstances, ought not to apply.

The critical thing is we could move to deal with this now, and that is what the opposition is seeking to do. We've been given an opportunity by the Senate in relation to this set of bills that have come across to the House. It's transparently and abundantly clear the government does not want to consider these matters quickly. But it is the opposition's view and, as I understand is evident from voting patterns, the view of a number of the crossbenchers as well that this matter should be dealt with quickly, and we have an opportunity to do that. Indeed we believe on the side of the chamber we have a responsibility to act quickly. For these reasons the opposition is moving this suspension of standing orders motion, just as we moved a series of other motions.

We believe the appropriate act for the House would be to support this motion so we can suspend standing orders and resume debate on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Small Business Redundancy Exemption) Bill 2023. We can bring that on immediately, and we can vote on that immediately, before Christmas—for people employed who, as the law presently stands, face the risk that, due to circumstances outside of their control, where they would ordinarily have available redundancy provisions in the general industrial relations legislation, those provisions would not apply, because of the very technical operation of the small business exemption. It's widely accepted that exemption ought not to operate in the specific circumstances where a historically large business, where the normal redundancy provisions would apply, has managed to fall under the small business provisions by virtue of insolvency, so we can act now to deliver that greater certainty to employees around Australia. The government has completely failed to explain why it doesn't want to bring this on now, and this is a chance for the government to do this. It's a chance for the parliament to legislate in a way the Senate already has legislated, to pass this bill, therefore I commend this motion to the House.

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

Is there a seconder for the motion?

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. A lot has been said. We have three precedents for this. So I want to go through a couple of points that the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations has made in relation to when we've done this three times prior. He has made points about practices in this chamber, process and procedure in this chamber and standing orders in this chamber. He may or may not be correct about some of the points he's made, but I take the point that this could've been dealt with in different ways. There are different processes and procedures. There are lots of different ways that these bills that have been sent back as private members' bills from the Senate may well have been dealt with. I hear that. I'm sure that's true. When we got into the detail of what the bills were dealing with, he said, 'If you were so passionate about this, why didn't you do it when you were in government?' On the bill relating to people in the Pacific islands that we're looking at, the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Small Business Redundancy Exemption) Bill 2023, he said, 'I think those people want the whole omnibus bill passed, not just sections one at a time.' He may or may not be right about that.

Putting all that to one side—forgetting how the different procedures, practices and standing orders of this chamber could have dealt with this, forgetting about what previous governments have or haven't done in relation to this legislation and putting aside whether people who are affected by these four bills that have come back today do or don't want the whole legislation to go through—the one thing that is factual, the one thing we can agree on right now, is that if the government were to support these four individual bills to go through this chamber today they could. That's the bottom line. All the rest, in some ways, is semantics. We could talk about how the chamber dealt with this and what the processes, procedures and standing orders say and what the Manager of Opposition Business should have done. That is all by the by. What previous governments did is by the by. Right now, we have four private members' bills that have come back from the Senate. The government could support those and they could be implemented all but immediately. Those four elements of the larger closing the loopholes omnibus bill could happen right now.

The minister's also previously mentioned that this has been presumptuous because when IR legislation goes to the Senate there are always amendments and references to committees. Do you know what? That chamber has said—as we have in this chamber today—they could move through those four parts of the omnibus bill today with no amendments but exactly how the minister first wrote them up and wanted to legislate them.

Let's put all the processes, procedures and standing orders aside. Yes, there are different ways that this could be treated. But, at the end of the day, the issue is this. The opposition today came into this chamber saying, 'We are willing to debate and to support these four bills and pass them in this chamber today.' These four bills were all drafted by the minister. They have all passed as private members' bills through the Senate. That's happened there. So the minister has four elements of a larger bill that he could take through this chamber today. I've said this before, but I would again say to the minister on this one about a redundancy exemption that ensures that employees do not miss out on redundancy payments merely because of their employer that the people who are affected by this would like the government to pass this today. They don't care how the Manager of Opposition Business introduced it or what's happened with the processes of the parliament. They would like this to pass today.

The people who are affected by the asbestos issue in that particular bill would like it to pass today. Those people who may well be discriminated against in the workplace because of domestic violence would like that specific amendment bill to pass through today. For those who are first responders, that particular bill affects their lives. They are not into what 90 per cent of this debate has been about. They are not into the parliamentary processes, the standing orders or the procedures we are debating here. They are not into that. They are into: 'Okay. Great! The opposition and some crossbenchers have said they're prepared to support four elements of the government's bill, and some of them affect me. That's great. That's going to save six or seven or eight months, and that bill will change my life quicker than it otherwise would be.' And that's why I'm seconding this motion.

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

It's not the most effective afternoon in the House, but here we are. To go through it once again, I'll deal with the procedural issues quickly and then I want to say a bit more about the substance.

On the procedural issues: if the opposition wanted to deal with these issues quickly, why did you filibuster this morning? Why? If you actually wanted to deal with these quickly, why did you spend an hour and a half making speeches about when we would debate it? Why? I didn't get to declare the government's position on the amendment, because to declare the government's position—because I was the mover of the motion—would have wound up the debate. I did try to stand up earlier in the debate, and opposition members were still wanting to speak, so I went and sat down, and then they kept going for an hour and a half, and, as a result, that question never got resolved. If you were serious about wanting to deal with this quickly, would you have designed to filibuster and waste as much time as possible, with people giggling about how clever this was?

The opposition have treated this like a game all day. That's what they've done. They haven't done their homework—they haven't bothered—with something happening for the first time this term, on a private members' bill coming through like this.

I can tell you: if there had been a Greens party bill that had made it through, I can guarantee the Greens party would have been onto the right procedures when it reached the House, if a private member's bill that had been moved by one of their senators had made it through. I know they would have, because I've seen them do it.

In opposition, we had occasions where we were in the same situation, and, as I said, Christopher Pyne and I would be jumping to try to see who'd get carriage of it. That's because you want it to be something that you can make sure you give a second reading speech to. You want to be able to do the advocacy.

But if there was any sincerity in wanting to deal with these issues quickly, why was there a filibuster this morning? A whole lot of people in the chamber right now were roped into being part of it. I don't know whose decision it was, but it all happened without there being any response by the government, because I didn't want to be in a situation of closing off debate. Was it a game where people thought it would be funny—'Let's see if we can get him to move that the question be put'? Is that what it was? Was this entire thing just a game, as far as the opposition is concerned? This is an issue that they have never cared about. As to this one in particular that's in front of us right now, this hangs off another provision, because this is about discrimination not occurring, and we don't have any examples of this having occurred yet, but it's about making sure that no-one is discriminated against, in relation to family and domestic violence leave being there.

Now, paid family and domestic violence leave is only law. The call for it had been around for more than a decade, and we'd started, when we were last in office; we hadn't got there. The call had got really loud during the nine years intervening. Those opposite never moved on it. And now we're meant to believe that suddenly they think these provisions are urgent? It's a tiny area of discrimination that hangs off provisions that they held back their entire time in office. Is that what we're meant to believe?

You see, we had a line from the Manager of Opposition Business—and I wrote it down, so it mightn't be quite verbatim, but I think it's pretty close. He said: 'We've seen repeated attempts by the government to prevent these bills from being debated.' The prevention of the bills being debated has been all of his own making, because, if he'd done what the leader of the Greens party had previously done, or if he'd done what I'd tried to do when Christopher Pyne was here, then he would have made sure that the debate could at least occur in the House. But he did none of that. The opposition played, this morning, what can only be described as a game. Then, when given direct instruction from the Speaker about how to make sure that it ended up with debate, they refused to do it and just went to suspensions. That's what they've done. But I think the best evidence—and I don't know who's going to tell Senator Cash what's happened today—

Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

She'll take it well!

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

Can you let me know what time of day it happens, because I want to be in the corridor! The person who speaks on behalf of Senator Cash on legislation issues is the Manager of Opposition Business, so he spoke. The opposition gets the first speech in response, and they get the half-hour. He used 20 minutes of the half-hour, so he used pretty much all of it. Guess how many references he made to any of the four issues that they're now saying are urgent? Not one!

Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not one!

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

Zero! So now they're coming back claiming that this is urgent from their perspective, claiming a passion and goodwill! And, when they were asked to talk about the legislation, they could find 28 minutes and there was not a single reference to any of the provisions that we're talking about now. Not one! It is unparliamentary to use the word 'hypocrite'. It is not an parliamentary to refer to hypocrisy, and we are witnessing hypocrisy on steroids right now.

The question then, though, is, why would they want to split the bill? Of course they haven't split the bill, because the bill's still here, and we probably won't get to debate it today because we've wasted all this time. That's probably what will happen. So the net impact of this entire game will be: we'll have a couple of late nights the next couple of nights to get through the speeches because we had all of these suspensions, not because procedurally they were going to get anywhere but because the Manager of Opposition Business felt he needed some cover for the monumental stuff-up that he participated in. So, if you're one of the people who gets rostered on for the 10 pm slot over the next couple of nights, remember this moment, because it's the only reason it's going to happen. If you look at the number of people on the speaking lists and the time that we were planning to set aside for the week, it was all there. For all the talk of 'Will there be a gag motion?' and 'What will happen?', we haven't gagged a vote, we haven't reduced speaking times and we've been making sure that these provisions all get to be discussed and discussed properly.

The other issue that comes up—and I respect that the Deputy Manager of Opposition Business has raised this a couple of times—is the issue of amendments, as though somehow it would be a victory for me and why don't I want to get the bill through in the exact form. Senate inquiries can improve legislation. They are often do, particularly on provisions like this. And I might say some of the people in the Senate who voted for these private members' bills are also negotiating with me about amendments to the provisions in the main bill. They don't want them to go through in this form either. Evidence has been brought to the Senate committee on each of these four bills about how some of the different provisions need to be tweaked to have maximum effect. As the Leader of the House, I probably let the House down—I don't knock the Senate as much as most of my predecessors did. I'm more respectful. That might just be because Senator Wong is the leader over there and it's just a smarter course of action.

Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Self preservation!

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

But I don't bag the Senate. Maybe it's because I was briefly in an upper house in the state parliament. But the process of an inquiry, particularly on a bill like this—of getting stakeholders to make submissions, of getting cross-party conversation to say what amendments might improve things here and then to get the report and to make amendments as a result—does land you in better legislation. And the Senate inquiry was probably pretty close to ready to report. If you look at their hearing schedule, they may well have been able to report next week. They probably could have. Why will they not? Because the Liberal and National parties voted that they are not allowed to. Even if they are ready to report, they are not allowed to, and they're not allowed to because those opposite changed the rule from 'report by 1 February' to 'must not report before 1 February'. That looks to me like a delaying tactic. It looks like this entire charade is nothing but a delaying tactic for the opposition. I don't have that view of why Senator Lambie has participated in it or why Senator Pocock or Senator Tyrrell have participated in it. But I'll tell you what: it's exactly why Senator Cash was all over it. It's exactly why the Liberal Party and the National Party were suddenly all in on provisions they had never supported and, when they had a chance to debate the bill, provisions they never referenced. What do they want to delay? They want to delay legislation that will close loopholes and make sure people are paid properly. With everything that is happening with cost of living at the moment, that will never be our position.

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

The question before the House is that the motion moved by the Manager of Opposition Business be agreed to.