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

You ask about the Productivity Commission, Senator Nash. Let us have that as part of the inquiry. But what you are doing is simply vaulting over a proper inquiry into the legislation, the Social Security Amendment (Income Support for Regional Students) Bill 2010, which you bring before the Senate. We all know that it is in the public interest to have such an inquiry. Beyond that, there are some dozen pieces of private members’ legislation before the Senate which have precedence. The senator’s motion has moved that this piece of legislation jump precedence over other legislation, including the Marriage Equality Amendment Bill, which is highly contentious and which many young people in this country want to see brought forward as a matter of urgency. Senator Nash would have that set aside.

There is also the Ombudsman Amendment (Education Ombudsman) Bill from Senator Hanson-Young to bring in an education ombudsman. It is going to get short shrift from Senator Nash. There is the Protecting Children from Junk Food Advertising (Broadcasting Amendment) Bill, which is aimed at looking after our youngsters but which has largely been blockaded by both the government and the opposition in getting the interests of young Australians advanced. There is Senator Siewert’s Stolen Generations Reparations Tribunal Bill for Indigenous Australians, but Senator Nash would relegate that for a bill for which she does not want proper scrutiny by the Senate. There is the Restoring Territory Rights (Voluntary Euthanasia) Bill, which I brought before this parliament and which is of high interest to the territories. That will be relegated by Senator Nash. There is the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Prohibition of Support for Whaling) Bill 2010 as the whaling fleets get ready to leave Japan again. No, that will not be getting an airing, but Senator Nash wants to jump a process.

I might add, Acting Deputy President Pratt, that you will know that we have an agreement for the government to get private members’ time instituted in the Senate after three years of blocking, obfuscation and failure to progress it by opposition members as well as by members of the current government. I put it to Senator Nash that she ought to be seeing that the National Party gets behind bringing in that agreement in this house so that we can have proper process here for the discussion of bills, including hers, in a weekly private members’ time. We need to get order into this process, not queue jumping for the purpose that Senator Nash has. It is simply a matter of proper process, something I think Senator Nash should think a little about.