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

by leave—I will agree to that move, but I must say here that this is effectively the government taking one hour of time when members can discuss government documents to give to government business. But there is no reciprocation from the government here on private members’ business so that the big backlog of bills—and some of them are very important pieces of legislation that are not the government’s—get a go. I say to the government that it is testing the Senate to be simply expanding government business in a year in which it sets sittings at an almost record low period of time without any quid pro quo for proper consideration of the pile-up of legislation that comes from members other than the government in this place.