Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Mr President, to me the argument seems quite academic. If some senators—indeed the Greens and agreed to by us—want to deal with the bills separately, I do not see what the argument is about having the committee stage together. In any case, the committee stage will deal with each bill separately and, if there are amendments to each individual bill, they will be dealt with one after the other rather than all together. So I do not see that there is any problem with dealing with the whole three bills quite separately but one after the other.