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

by leave—I move:

After “Monday, 15 March to Thursday, 18 March”, insert:

Monday, 12 April to Thursday, 15 April

Monday, 19 April to Thursday, 22 April.

After “Monday, 21 June to Thursday, 24 June”, insert:

Monday, 2 August to Thursday, 5 August

Monday, 9 August to Thursday, 12 August.

We now have from the government a proposal for one of the shortest sitting years in history for next year after an extremely short sitting period for the Senate this year. There is a longstanding average of about 70 sitting days for the Senate, and a quick look at the recent performance since the Howard government got a majority in the Senate and tended to treat it like a rubber stamp shows less and less sitting time. So we are now sitting more like 50 days rather than 70 days. There is no good argument for that. The country has not been faced with less legislation, fewer problems or less for its MPs to do; in fact, quite the reverse is the case. As we all know in this chamber, we are now confronted with some tension over sittings between now and Christmas because while the opposition, for example, is arguing that there needs to be further debate on the emissions trading scheme and is proposing that that be debated into the new year, the government is saying it wants it through and would potentially propose that we sit longer. But the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator Minchin, has written to the government saying that we will not sit longer.

The Greens have repeatedly raised the issue of the Senate being treated a bit like the House of Representatives, and that is as a captive of the executive. And it is not. This is the chamber for reviewing legislation and for making sure that the government gets it right in the interests of the people as a whole. We are looking at pretty monumental legislation like the emissions trading scheme legislation, like the new legislation to do with telecommunications in this country and legislation which has to help manage the economy at the time of the global financial crisis and the much longer crisis for the environment which faces not only this country but the planet. To be able to argue in the midst of that that we should be sitting less and less—I have not heard that argument; I simply see here a prescription for the government for that outcome. It is not acceptable, nor is it acceptable for the government serially to keep thinking that at the end of the year you can have late-hour Senate sittings, extra morning sittings, the potential for Friday sittings, the threat of weekend sittings and chaos by pressure at the end of each year. It is not sensible. We should be planning much better than that. If you cannot budget the Senate sitting hours, how can you be expected to come up with better budgeting for arguably more important things for the nation?

This amendment from the Greens says: ‘Let us sit an extra 16 days next year. That would bring the total to 66, still below the average.’ We know it is an election year. We know that in election years both houses of parliament tend to sit less, not more, because governments want to get out as early as they can once they have got an election date fixed in their mind. But that is not in the interests of the nation. What is in the interests of the nation is us sitting reasonably long times—not to pad out anything but to deal properly with legislation.

The government should look seriously at this, and I hope the opposition will as well. It is a very reasonable amendment that I am putting forward on behalf of the Greens, and I hope that the Senate will adopt it, remembering of course that it is up to us, if we find that we have more sitting time than required, to very simply go home. What is not so easy to arrange is if there are not sufficient sitting hours and we have to sit more, when senators have made arrangements for all manner of other communications, events and functions in their electorates and on the national scene. This is pure and simple good management that the Greens are proposing here. I hope that the government and the opposition will agree with it.