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

Notice of motion No. 594 calls on the government to abandon plans they inherited from the Howard government to remove or restrict territorial copyright protection for books. This is a bit like stifling debate. I am not saying I am for it or against it, but having a notice of motion like this on an issue that we really need to spend time debating is not the right way of proceeding on this issue. It calls on the government to abandon plans before we even have a debate in the chamber about it. I tend to think this is not the way to go on an issue that clearly needs debate and that we should not stifle debate on such an issue. It is pre-empting something before we even get there.