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

I move:

That—

(1)

On Thursday, 17 June 2010:

(a)

the hours of meeting shall be 9.30 am to 6.30 pm and 7.30 pm to adjournment;

(b)

the routine of business from 7.30 pm shall be government business only;

(c)

divisions may take place after 4.30 pm; and

(d)

if the Senate is sitting at 10 pm, the sitting of the Senate be suspended till 9 am on Friday, 18 June 2010.

(2)

On Friday, 18 June 2010, the question for the adjournment of the Senate shall be put at 1.30 pm.

I will not take long. It is important for the Senate to get on with the business of the Senate and the legislative agenda that we are seeking to progress. It is with regret that I recognise that a number in the chamber do not support additional hours for the government business this week. I will recap what happens when we get to the end of the winter session. It is not unusual, and it was usual during that time when we were in opposition, for the government of the day to ask for additional hours for late Thursday or late Tuesday of the first week and usually but not always Friday as well of the first week. But it was always usual for the government of the day, when I was in opposition and Manager of Opposition Business, to ask for additional hours in the second week on the Tuesday, additional hours on the Thursday night and Friday and effectively what I would call a ‘job and finish’, a list of bills that were outstanding and needed to be progressed through the Senate prior to the Senate adjourning for the winter break. The opposition would scrutinise those bills, ensure that they were necessary for the end of the session and consent to the additional hours to allow everyone to participate in the debates, to allow senators to argue their cases about the particular legislation. That is really a Senate agreement, because of course the minor parties and Independents would agree that we needed to finalise the legislative agenda.

What we have seen in the last year and perhaps a little bit longer is an opposition and minor parties and Independents not willing to agree to additional hours in the last two weeks to allow the legislative agenda of the government of the day to proceed. There are a range of reasons that have been put forward. They hang their hat specifically on one main issue: they complain that the government did not add enough weeks to the sitting period. They bring out statistics and a range of information to demonstrate that fact. If we put that to the side for a moment, even with additional weeks it is still not unusual for the government of the day to ask for additional hours to allow the legislative program to be finalised in the last fortnight. Why? Because even over the last 10 years there have been uneven numbers of weeks and they have been interrupted on occasion by elections, which also means fewer weeks than in other years. So the opposition and the minor parties—if I am wrong about the minor parties I am sure they will correct me—complain that there are not additional weeks and argue for additional weeks. The point I am making is that, to finalise the bills prior to the winter session, it is not unusual for us to agree on a rough list of those bills which the government claims and argues are urgent and it is usually settled, sometimes with a little less than we might sometimes claim.

Despite the opposition rejection of additional sittings, and I will come to that, it is useful to acknowledge that the Senate has traditionally, as I have said, sat extended hours and on Fridays. And the opposition is not prepared, as far as I can see, to allow for additional hours this week in similar circumstances. It is disappointing for a government that has an important legislative agenda to progress. The opposition is using government business time. It seems when you analyse the figures that they are using government business time for their own business—in other words, for those matters which concern them. They want to discuss bills that go nowhere. They want to take up government business time discussing issues that do not progress the government’s legislative agenda. It is government business time and should be utilised for that purpose.

No doubt the opposition will say that they are refusing additional hours on the basis that, as I have indicated, the government has not allowed sufficient Senate sitting days. I disagree with this. This government allocated sitting days on the expectation that the Senate would allocate the standard amount of time for government business, but this is not occurring either. In the autumn sittings we have had a record low proportion of Senate time on government business—just 38 per cent of Senate time was given to government business as against a standard of around 50 per cent. So, even with the available time, those opposite and those on the crossbenches are ensuring that the available government business time has been reduced from 50 to 38 per cent. So my complaint is not only founded on the available time for government business but that you are chewing that down to ensure that we do not even get the available time to progress government legislation.

The complaint about the additional week then falls on a hollow vessel when you look at that statistic, because even with an additional week or weeks, if you continue to depress the number of hours that we have available for government business, you still do not progress government business. You are still caught with not being able to progress the government’s legislative agenda. You will still get a request for additional hours to ensure that we have available time to debate government bills. I took the opportunity of providing a graph for the Senate. I know it is unparliamentary, but it does highlight the problem.