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

Pursuant to contingent notice standing in the name of the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Evans, I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of the matter, namely a motion to give precedent to a motion to vary the hours of meeting and routine of business today.

The government has signalled its intention for the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (National Broadband Network Measures—Access Arrangements) Bill 2010 to be completed this week. We finalised the program and circulated that in the chamber, and that indicated that it was essential to have this bill dealt with in this week. Having now had a number of hours for the second reading debate and the committee stage, it is time to ensure that we complete the bill before we rise this evening or—if people require additional hours—by the end of the week. It is necessary to ensure that we put additional hours in the program to allow that to occur.

In addition, there are significant amendments that need to be progressed. We are currently in the committee stage in relation to that bill. In dealing with the committee stage, if any amendments are passed here it will be necessary for them to go over to the House for the House to deal with those amendments. If there are any messages returned, the Senate will then need to deal with those. In giving the proposed motion precedence, we seek the support of the Senate to ensure that we can finalise this bill.

If you look at the program over the last 12 months, the government has endeavoured to gain the cooperation of the opposition to ensure that we can get our legislative program dealt with in a reasonable way. The opposition have not been completely reasonable, if I can use that phrase, in ensuring that the government had sufficient time to deal with its legislative program. There are two indicia which highlight this. The first is that government business for the year to date runs at about 40 per cent of Senate time. It usually runs at about 50 per cent. Therefore, there has been about 10 per cent less government time in which to deal with legislation. The second is that the opposition have increased the number of urgency motions and matters of public importance from something in the order of between seven per cent and 15 per cent to 38 per cent. That has meant that the amount of available time for the Senate has significantly reduced.

We all know that at the end of the session it is not unusual to seek additional hours to ensure that we can deal with the legislative program. In this instance, there is but one bill that we are now pursuing with vigour to ensure that we finalise the legislative program of the government. The opposition have indicated, clearly, that they are not supportive of this approach. Therefore, the only recourse that the government had to ensure that we can proceed was to move this motion. We need the support of the minor parties and the Independents. It would be much better to have had the opposition arrange—like we have done in the past—time for a full debate and for the debate to be continued in respect of this. The opposition have indicated time and again that they do not want to debate this bill. They are seeking to frustrate the ability of the government to finalise its legislative program and frustrate the ability of the government to finish this bill. The opposition have that right. The government also has the right to pursue its legislation as outlined.