Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Absolute rubbish, Senator Fifield; you are right. Why? Because the government were forced to bring their legislation not only to the other place but to the Senate as well, they themselves got mugged by the reality that they had to move amendments to their own legislation. But, deceptively, the Labor spin doctors go to the press gallery and tell them it is all the coalition’s fault. They do not say: ‘By the way, we introduced amendments without warning to the coalition, and do you know what the irresponsible coalition did, especially that irresponsible Senator Fifield, who had carriage of the matter on behalf of the coalition? He was so irresponsible as to say, “I actually want to read the amendments before I ask my colleagues to vote for them; I want to consider the impact of these amendments on the whole legislative scheme.”’ Did the Labor spin doctors say that? Of course they did not. This is yet another example of this government that will say anything, irrespective of its robustness. So what we have is a very important role that this house, the Senate, plays in Australian democracy, where the Labor government itself took the opportunity of review of this legislation to amend its own legislation but then, when it was delayed because of that, blamed the coalition.