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

You can bring it on. You can give notice of this matter. You can then have it debated on Thursday, which is general business, which is the time available for you to have that debate. You could do it at that point. You know from the opposition's perspective that that is the opportunity you have to debate. But you have not taken that course. You have come into this chamber and without notice sought to disrupt the program with your own issue. That is why we will not support the motion.

What we are supposed to hear from the opposition, if they do want to suspend, is a cogent argument on the suspension rather than the substantive matter. All we got was the substantive and not a cogent reason. Senator Abetz used the term 'urgent'. This is not a requirement for an urgent motion. It is simply a suspension to have this motion dealt with. There is no requirement of urgency in respect of that. There is an opportunity to give notice and have the debate on Thursday with a general business notice.

The government will not be supporting a position to up-end this parliament when there are processes available for you to debate this matter. You have been throwing out the anchor yourselves, you do not want to debate the carbon price, you do not want to debate legislation in this chamber. You want to simply throw up any matter to debate other than the legislative program that this government has put in place. You have done it in such a way, today, which also denies other senators the ability to participate in the debate. If you are fair dinkum about this, why don't you put a notice of motion in and have it debated in general business on Thursday as you could do?

Opposition senators interjecting—

We have not heard the argument. Why don't you test the water? Because you do not want to test the water. (Time expired)