Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I would like to make a short statement before agreeing to take this as a formal motion. Like many senators in this place today and in the past, I am of the view that there is a range of business that should not be dealt with as formal business. Many complex propositions are put forward in this place and deserve to be debated. It is an abuse of the formal business process to put these complex propositions to a simple yes/no decision, without the opportunity to really debate them. Formal business is intended for simple process matters or matters where there is no need for debate. Mr President, could you ask the Procedure Committee to again have a look at this matter. On a number of motions today that are not really substantive or where there is not really an opportunity to debate them, I will be abstaining.