Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens oppose this motion. Again, this is the government manipulating the Senate, because it has the numbers, while running the Senate for the least number of sitting days for decades, to extend the hours so that legislation can be pushed through but the government can escape the scrutiny which the Senate has been so good at before the government got the majority. This is using the majority to abuse the role of the Senate in reviewing what the government does and to extensively inquire into the legislation and other matters it brings before the Senate. We can do very little about it. It is an abuse of the Senate in the interests of a government that does not want to be scrutinised as it should be, and the Greens will oppose this motion.