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

No, Minister, you will not get an apology, because yet again what we have is a government that cannot work out a bill between the House of Representatives and the Senate. How many times, in relation to industrial relations legislation, have you guys had to amend this while the bill is being walked over? You just cannot draft it completely. How many times have we had to amend this legislation? You had 336 amendments shortly before the whole Work Choices bill started. I do not actually blame the department for this. They are operating under the exigencies that you place on them because you know the politics is against you. You know you have to rush this through. That is why you were out there advertising the day after the announcement, why you are demanding that people draft legislation on the run and why—yet again—we have legislation in chapters. We have tranches of legislation because you cannot get the bill drafted completely before it comes into the chamber.