Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you. I accept Senator Brown's proposition that the Greens have implemented this time and also the coalition and the government did support private senators' business of a Thursday morning. However, a broad concept was that whoever had the time for the private senators' bills would in fact organise which bills they wished to debate and, where possible, organise time management. I think it is superfluous if we end up having private senators' bills time and we do not get to a final decision on this.

I will pick up the point about the urgency motion that Senator Brown mentioned. Yes, we have an urgency motion this afternoon, but we believe, especially with the state­ments made by Senator Boswell, that this matter is more urgent than that motion. That is all. It is just more urgent than the motion that we currently have listed for this afternoon to be debated. It is important for us to achieve an outcome with this bill. We prepared to put it to a vote at the end of further debate and then let the chamber decide on whether the bill will pass or fail on its merits. That is all we are asking to do. We are not asking for anything except to conclude this debate within one hour of time and does not affect the government's program any further today.