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

The Greens do not support the motion, but we will not call a division on it. We know everybody wants to move on. I have previously stated the reasons for not supporting the motion. We wrote to the executive about this months ago. I got no response whatsoever from Prime Minister Rudd—total indifference. Here we now have the government wanting the Senate to sit extra days ad hoc to facilitate its agenda. It is a totally cavalier way of treating the Senate, but, if the opposition has an arrangement to go along with that, so be it.

I have just given to leaders an amendment to this motion that I had hoped to have circulated earlier to have question time tomorrow and on Monday. It has always been the Greens’ point of view that if the Senate sits there ought to be a question time. It is appropriate that, if the government wants the Senate to sit extra hours, the government should subject itself to questions on the matters that the Senate might want to raise. If there are no questions, we can go straight on with business. I move:

At the end of the motion, add:

(4)

On each new calendar day on which the Senate sits a period of a least one hour be set aside for question time.