Andrew Murray (WA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to open our side of the debate with some general remarks. I want to begin with a congratulatory note to the minister, because I think that this has been a brilliant example of very clever issues management. If I wanted to suppress dissent and ensure something very complex and rather awkward and ugly got through the Senate as quickly as possible, this is how I would manage it: you have a very short, intense and difficult to interact with process of Senate inquiry—which, I might say, is no discredit to the participants in that inquiry, from both the government side and the non-government side, as they all worked their little butts off collectively—and you do not introduce all of the bills that have to be dealt with until very late in the piece; you produce nine sets of supplementary explanatory memoranda and all the amendments late in the piece, all of which require some consideration and understanding; you bring on the debate as early as possible; and, of course, you conclude it with a guillotine. I think professionally speaking, through the chair, that is a brilliant example of chamber and political issues management to get the outcome you want!