Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I recognise the lateness of the hour today and that there is still other business for the Senate to conduct, so I will attempt to keep my remarks as brief as possible—I hope that my comments on brevity are not similar to those of colleagues who have gone before me! Nonetheless, it is a pleasure to speak on the appropriations bills, but it is a great disappointment to speak at such a late hour on the very last day of these sittings. The appropriations bills are important bills for this parliament to consider appropriately, thoroughly and diligently. They are the one opportunity, in particular, for this chamber to have a relatively free-ranging debate on the budget that has been just been handed down by this government. Regrettably, because of the mismanagement of this chamber by the government, we will in fact see barely any debate at all occur on these appropriations bills and the budget that the government has handed down. That is a grave disappointment to me. It should be a grave disappointment to all senators and, particularly, to the Australian public that this opportunity has been missed. It has been missed because, of course, rather than dealing with the 2009-10 budget in a timely manner, the government had to spend most of the week trying to talk about a program that they are seeking to introduce sometime in 2012. They did that rather than getting on with the business in an orderly manner and dealing with the priorities, the top priorities being this budget—this budget debacle, of course—that they have handed down.

The opposition are, of course, supporting these bills, because we recognise the importance of them passing in a timely manner. That is why they will go through tonight despite the fact that we will not have the type of debate on the budget that the parliament and the Australian public deserve. However, I do have a number of concerns. As the youngest member of this chamber aside from Senator Hanson-Young, I have some concerns in particular about the fact that, whilst this budget whacks many Australians left, right and centre, it whacks younger people in particular. It whacks them in a number of ways.