Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

As I understand it, it was a matter that did need repairing. I think it demonstrates—and I made this point last night—that some of these would have been picked up through a better process if this government had adopted a better way of going through the legislation. It has done that in the past. It did it in the years when I was on other committees. It seems to have changed its tune since 1 July. It promised it was not going to change its tune when it got control of the Senate. I think this again demonstrates that it has in fact changed its tune. It now treats the committee process as a way of facilitating the debate in here—or perhaps not facilitating it at all—and using this place as a sausage machine.

I complained about it last night. I promised I was not going to complain about it again, but it is a new day and I thought a new complaint would not hurt. But I will not complain again today about this. The point needs to be made that, with a constructive opposition and an accountable government, you would end up with a much better outcome and we would be in a position where we could ensure that those unintended consequences—the slips and the mistakes—were all fixed up and we could agree to move on. We could perhaps have an argument on principle and policy differentiation rather than arguing where, in many respects, with a bit more energy and a bit more effort we could improve the operation of this bill. This bill does need improvement. It does fall short. The government knows that. The government knows it is ramming it through. It should pick up the amendments that the committee made. It is not going to, clearly, and that is a disappointment. But this amendment relates to a minor procedural matter and the opposition supports it.