Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I rise to make a short statement. The opposition will not be supporting this motion, for reasons we have outlined previously in this chamber. I reiterate that we have constantly indicated to the government that the number of sitting weeks for this year has been totally inadequate. People set their diaries, their electorate business and their personal commitments around a sitting schedule that is designed to commence at the beginning of the year. We have flagged that the government needs to seriously reconsider the number of sitting weeks next year in this chamber. We cannot continue with this low number of weeks and then allow the government to continually rearrange the hours of sitting on an ad hoc basis. We believe we should have a firm sitting pattern for an entire year, not constant rearrangement. We have probably made the mistake of being too compliant and given the government so many extra hours during sitting weeks this year that they now just take it for granted. We have constantly been saying, no, we will not be extending hours. The government needs to rearrange its program to include a sufficient number of weeks to deal with the legislation that this chamber has to deal with.