Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thought we had this debate yesterday. In fact, if people had seriously considered it yesterday, the vote would have been had yesterday. As I said yesterday, I am not interested in playing politics on this issue; I am interested in being very prudent. The government have made it absolutely clear that for good governance they need certain bills passed by 30 June, and what they are trying to do is play games rather than show good governance. They are trying to say, ‘Let’s get to the end of the week’ and then they will say, ‘Oh, quick, we’ve got these other bills to get through.’ They know what they are doing here. They know that they are supposed to manage business in a way that is conducive to good decision-making processes, and they have stuffed up. To be frank, it is left for the chamber to wait on them with nappies and tissues and to mop up after them. They have made a mistake; they have underestimated how much work has to be done here. Now they are trying to do things in reverse by covering the CPRS issue first. That will chew up a lot of time, and then there will be very little time left to deal with issues that we need to get through by 30 June.

I will make it quite clear that I do not take this issue of rearranging business lightly. Frankly, the government have failed. They are playing games, and I will not be part of the games that they are playing. It is prudent to cover first the issues that they have said need to be addressed and then, after those have been dealt with, get on with the CPRS.