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

I want to take up where Senator Xenophon left off, and that is to reiterate the Greens proposal that we sit an extra week before Easter. That would surely solve the dilemma that the Senate is in at the moment. It was a sensible proposal. Senator Xenophon supported it. Senator Fielding did not and nor did the government or the opposition, and that was a mistake.

The problem here—and we have just heard it very personally delivered by Senator Xenophon—is that there is not enough time to deal with the number and complexity of pieces of legislation we are being asked to deal with. Well, you give yourself more time. But the opposition cannot have it both ways. They cannot be saying, ‘There has to be more time for this, but we will vote down sittings of the Senate which would facilitate us being able to adequately scrutinise and debate such legislation.’

I have been approached about this motion by the opposition in the last few days. While I think it is ultimately not the clinching argument here, I do have to point out that repeatedly—and I am talking about dozens of times—the Greens moved in the Senate during the last parliament, when, you will remember, the now opposition had control of this place, for bills not to be exempted from the cut-off so that we would be able to deal with them and take more time with them. Every time, the government of the day, the coalition, refused the arrangement to have the bills held over until they could be properly scrutinised. That is what we are talking about: taking more time to scrutinise bills. But every time the Howard government rolled over the Senate, using its numbers.