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

The coalition will be opposing the motion moved by Senator Ludwig. I will put some real facts on the table—in contrast to the assertions made by Senator Ludwig. Firstly, we have the lowest number of sitting weeks of any government since World War II, which is a disgrace in itself. The crossbenchers have criticised the government on each occasion that the parliamentary schedule for sitting days has been put forward. Hansard will bear out the fact that all of us have said we trust the government to run the Senate chamber in a proper and fit way with the right number of sitting days. They did not do that in 2008 for the 2009 sitting schedule when we requested it be done. They again did not do it in 2009 for this sitting schedule. We have criticised the low number of weeks. The government do not like the scrutiny of the chamber, so they thought that they would be able to sneak through the provision of extending hours when they got bogged down with legislation. We have said that we are not going to do that. We are not going to support that; otherwise, we would continually see a decline in sitting weeks and legislation by exhaustion, not legislation by thorough analysis.

Let me come to a thorough analysis. Mr Albanese was on Lateline last night, and he has criticised the Senate for scrutinising legislation too much. I would like Mr Albanese to go back to some sort of politics 101 and understand the value of the Senate in scrutinising legislation. That is our role; that is what we do. The House of Representatives does not have that role as much as we do. We scrutinise legislation and we do it for a great purpose. I also dispel the myth that Senator Ludwig and the government have created that it is the coalition that actually controls the Senate. That is not true. All we need to do is to analyse the numbers to realise that we do not have a majority; we do not even equal the votes. We have one less than a majority so, if we want to move anything, we require the support—as do the crossbenchers—of each other. The majority of the chamber, not just the coalition, has decided that we are not going to play the games that the government wish to play—that is, reducing the number of productive weeks in this place and reducing the scrutiny of the government by allowing, at some point in time, additional hours and, as I said, legislation by exhaustion.

I also go to Senator Ludwig’s comment that 38 per cent of the Senate’s time has been taken up with government business. That is correct. But what Senator Ludwig conveniently left out in that 38 per cent is that that is purely for legislation. The other matters that take up the Senate’s time, to which the government members contribute—and in fact on many occasions have contributed more than any other group in this chamber—are things like ministerial statements, which are purely for ministers; taking note of answers, where the Labor Party and the crossbenchers contribute to half that time; the general conduct of business on a Thursday afternoon for anywhere between two and three hours, where the opposition of the day actually has the opportunity to raise matters—it is our exclusive time; committee reports, where Labor primarily introduce the committee reports and there is a response—again, from Labor senators as well as senators from around the chamber; matters of public interest, where Labor senators get more of the share of the chamber than any other group; and government responses to documents and reports. Again, the Labor Party generally speak on those as well. Standing orders provide for the format of the running of the chamber. We do not dictate when government business will be dealt with. We just follow the provisions of the standing orders that have been in place for many, many years prior to this government being in office.

I suggest to the government that one of the reasons why they are not getting some of their business through—in particular, legislation—is that they have a range of speakers. I can point to many examples where, on several occasions, government speakers outnumbered the coalition and the crossbenchers, taking up their own legislation time. There have been many occasions on which matters have been taken up in the chamber concerning hours or other procedural matters where we have spoken for less time than the government speakers, and some of the issues have been on the amount of time that they appear not to have in the chamber.

I also indicate that, on the legislative front, the opposition has not yet been given proof—which we have asked for—of what the matter is that is urgent and needs to be considered, requiring additional powers of the Senate. Mr Albanese has indicated that we are frustrating his program. That is not correct. This week alone, we are about to pass 17 pieces of legislation. That is not counting the pieces of legislation that have already gone through this week. Tomorrow we will be passing 17 pieces of legislation in what is called non-controversial time. Not only will we be doing that tomorrow but, for the first time that I can ever recall, the Senate will be commencing government business tomorrow with non-controversial legislation. It will not be dealing with other legislation because there is nothing else that is urgent. We are commencing on the non-controversial legislation. Those 17 bills are deemed to be important enough to be the ones that we commence the process with, and we will complete those on the basis that we are cooperating with the government in relation to legislation—in particular some budget measures that the government wishes to process through this place before what may possibly be the last two sitting weeks of this parliament.

I also indicate that the government have deferred five pieces of legislation that were on the list for this week. There are also two additional pieces of legislation that the government might have in the non-controversial selection. We are still determining whether or not they are non-controversial. But it goes to the point: the heart of the matter is that there is no other legislation that is deemed urgent enough for us to sit longer hours or to sit beyond these two sitting weeks. Senator Ludwig has just had 10 minutes to clearly demonstrate that there is any urgent legislation other than what is in the non-controversial legislation tomorrow, which we have agreed to pass through the Senate by the end of this week, but he did not do that. I think Senator Ludwig is crying tears and he is probably just pursuing the facade that the lower house is trying to—