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

by leave—It is unfortunate that Senator Abetz would take this totally wrongly and respond in a nasty and pejorative way to a motion which is about improving the procedures of the Senate. Let me put it on record that we were totally in agreement with the government’s decision to hold two minutes silence at the same time as the people of New Zealand. In fact, had we been in government we would have held two minutes silence around the country, not just in this parliament.

However, arising from that comes a procedural issue of all parties being notified and consulted when the Senate is called at an extraordinary time or out of hours. This is good practice, it has not necessarily been done in the past and it was not done on this occasion, and I think it needs to be instituted. I would be very happy to agree to the Procedure Committee looking at the matter. Senator Abetz has done himself and the coalition no good at all by his quite nasty and irrelevant intervention. I will be supporting the reference. It can do nothing but good to have the Procedure Committee look at the matter.