Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I will endeavour to be as calm and rational as I possibly can, in the face of the rather histrionic and frustrated Leader of the Government in the Senate, who is no doubt incurring the wrath of those in the lower house in senior levels of the government, who are saying, ‘Senator Evans, what are you doing upstairs?’ So I understand Senator Evans’s frustration. That goes with being a minority government in this chamber. We put up with that for nine of our 11 years in government. We know exactly the frustration that Senator Evans is experiencing. We experienced it at the hands of the Labor opposition for nine of those 11 years. They did all they could to frustrate us in our endeavours to take legislation through this place.

I suspect that Senator Evans does not understand the extent to which there has been very good cooperation between the two managers of business in this place—between Senator Ludwig and Senator Parry—to ensure that, subject to members of the government not interfering and not making statements at every opportunity, we can get on and debate those bills, which we accept are urgent and which do need to be passed today. As soon as members of the government shut up, we can get on with those bills. We believe there is ample time to deal with those bills today. We have had very productive discussions with Senator Ludwig to make sure that occurs. Indeed, we have gone so far as to say that we believe that before six o’clock there may well be the opportunity to return to the second reading debate on the CPRS. We have made it clear that we are perfectly happy to do that, because we believe there will be time.

We have acted in good faith throughout this week to ensure that the government can get those bills dealt with that we agree are urgent and do need to be dealt with this session. We have cooperated with that to the full extent. You know our view on the CPRS—through you, Mr President—in relation to that particular bill, but we have worked cooperatively with the government to ensure you can deal with your bills. I will sit down, so that we can get on and deal with those bills.