Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

And the government interject, and they are quite right, because they have lobbed onto the table 50 pages of amendments that I still have not seen and that, as I understand it, have still not been circulated in the chamber. We have a government in disarray that cannot run the Senate, let alone run the country.

Rather than playing politics, they should have been preparing policy. Of course, Ms Gillard is a great one for playing the politics, but she cannot prepare the policy. What is the government so strong about in relation to these matters? That good faith bargaining should come to the fore. Well, what good faith bargaining has there been in relation to this legislation? None whatsoever. The phone calls from our shadow minister, Mr Keenan, go unanswered by the princess, Ms Gillard. She does not deign to return the calls, yet she has the audacity to tell every employer in this country that there is an obligation to engage in good faith bargaining. She does not engage in good faith bargaining but everybody else has to. This is what we are faced with as an opposition and as a country today.

When Labor came to government they said they would have a huge legislative framework for us to deal with—that the parliament would sit before Christmas. It never happened. Then it started sitting as late as a parliament has ever started sitting, in February. This year, the Senate parliamentary timetable will be the shortest that it has been in my lifetime—