Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Schools Assistance (Learning Together—Achievement Through Choice and Opportunity) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2006. Before I turn to the substance of the bill, I want to put on record the opposition’s concern about the actions of the government today. We are debating non-controversial legislation, legislation that by agreement has been placed in the non-controversial area of our timetable. One would have thought that, even if the government does not want to treat this chamber with the appropriate courtesy, it could at least do so on non-controversial bills, given that there is agreement on the passage of them. Yet what we had was the parliamentary secretary moving a rearrangement and immediately proceeding to debate the two bills that were first off in that rearrangement, despite the fact that that significantly differed from what had been previously agreed. The government is entitled to do that, but I want to emphasise to the chamber that certainly the Manager of Opposition Business had no prior warning of that rearrangement. He was not advised. I do not know if other parties were, but certainly the opposition were not.