Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

and cover. The next major issue is that it is unprecedented not only to then agree to a suspension to deal with the private senator’s bill, as I outlined, but also to do the second tack, which is to say, ‘We’ll also include the disallowance motion in that procedure so that we’ll deal with that as well.’ That is the fourth breach of what I would call longstanding principles in this place. Why? Because once you start making rules on the run, once you start breaching long-established processes and principles in this place, you end up making not only policy on the run but also practice on the run. The difficulty will be where you end up once you throw all of that in the bin and you then want to argue from a principled position, should something else occur that you might want to argue against. The precedents in this place are well established. What the opposition are now doing is throwing all those precedents in the bin and saying: ‘We’re going to run it like a rodeo. We’ll let the bull out and see what happens.’ It is complete madness to travel down this path, and you should recognise that.

I do not expect Senator Cormann to recognise that, quite frankly. I do not. I accept that he has a policy position. He is blinded by how to resolve the position he has put himself in by mistake, accident or even design. He is looking for cover. He will search around, stretch out and grab anything to hold on to to see if he can bring himself a bit of respectability. But I cannot accept that the opposition, from their leadership, are going to accept that position. I cannot accept that, but it seems that they have been either sucked in or hoodwinked into this process. I can argue, but it seems that they are hell bent on proceeding down this path.

I can only give you some free advice—and cautionary advice, at that—that this is not a path that should be travelled because you have not provided any notice of your overturning of procedure. This course of action is unprecedented. You will get yourself into Odgers on it, I suspect. I am not sure if this Clerk will write it up; maybe the next Clerk will have to deal with that. The position you are allowing is that the opposition will be able agree to any freewheeling process and procedure to find a result to give them some cover, some fig leaf of respectability, in relation to a policy position that is completely unsustainable.

I will not deal with the substance of the matter in this debate. It does not look like I am going to have the numbers in this place, so I will not take up all of the time. I will end on this point: this is a silly position to adopt to try to give yourself an air of respectability in relation to a policy position that is completely unsustainable.