Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I have to say, it does pain me to say that the opposition will not be supporting the Greens motion. The coalition is always loath to curtail any opportunity for question time. We always question very seriously any attempt by the government on a sitting day to put forward a reason that question time should not be held. But we have never sought, on this side of the chamber, to frustrate the business of the Senate. We are, more often than not, extremely cooperative with the government; and we do recognise that the chamber has been delayed today—not inappropriately delayed; it was very appropriately delayed. It was very important that the Senate debate the censure motion today. It is a pity that it did not pass, but it was important to put on the record the blatant breach of faith with the Australian people that this government has demonstrated through its pursuit of the carbon tax. But we do recognise that the chamber needs to function, that business needs to be dealt with, so we will not be supporting the Greens motion on this occasion. But we will be continuing with motions to take note of answers, because we think it is very important that, with respect to that part of question time that was held, there is the opportunity to take note of those answers and to further ventilate the matters we have been debating today.

I must say I am a little surprised that the Greens needed to put this motion today, and in fact that they do not have the support of the government. I would have thought that this is actually evidence that the Greens need to negotiate a better coalition deal, a better alliance deal, with the government. Surely Senator Brown could ensure, at the Monday morning tactics meeting between Labor and the Greens—their combined tactics meeting—that these sorts of arrangements are sorted out. That might be something for Senator Brown to place on the agenda of the next meeting that he has with the Prime Minister. Being part of the government, in effect, Senator Brown should be able to resolve these sorts of issues directly with the government.

So, as I said, it is with regret that we will not be supporting the Greens motion on this occasion, but the chamber must continue to function. I would suggest that in future Senator Brown talks with his Labor colleagues about these issues.