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

I appreciate Senator Abetz’s offer to be engaged in future negotiations on this matter, because that is where we are inevitably headed if we do not get a resolution in the positive in the next little while. Firstly, I seek leave of the Senate to table a letter from the Treasurer to me today.

Leave granted.

I thank the Senate for that leave. I do not want to anticipate a vote of the Senate, but it may be that this package does not get the majority. I hear that the leader has flagged that the Senate may come back in a couple of weeks time to deal with the matter. I believe we should have another go if the matter is not resolved. Therefore, I want to flag to the Senate that somebody should move for an adjournment after the third reading vote—and I will do it if nobody else does it—anticipating that the Senate should come back at 10 o’clock in the morning. In the meantime, if it were not passed, the matter would go to the House. They could deal with it as they may, but I anticipate it would come back here. This would give the government and the people opposed to the amendment—and that may include Senator Xenophon—some time to look further at where the sticking point is.