Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I will make a short contribution to this matter of variation to sitting days. It is fair to say that we as a chamber have not covered ourselves in glory in the last few days. I say this without rancour and without seeking to make any political points. I believe it is completely unsatisfactory that we had a situation where many bills went through without any debate, without any positions being put and—particularly for controversial pieces of legislation such as amendments to the Family Law Act, which will literally affect hundreds of thousands of people in this country in the years to come—without a committee stage. There was no consideration given to fundamental amendments, no opportunity to ask the government key questions about how the new act will operate, no opportunity to properly scrutinise that piece of legislation and no opportunity to deal with a whole range of other legislation relating to issues of crime, corruption, air cargo, air security and pollution of Antarctica—just to name a few. That is unsatisfactory.

I would like to foreshadow—and I will consult with my colleagues, with the government, with the opposition, with the Australian Greens and with the DLP—a reference to the Procedure Committee of the Senate so we do not repeat what occurred. We are meant to be the house of review. We are meant to be the premier legislative body in this country when it comes to reviewing legislation to ensure there is appropriate scrutiny of the laws put up by the executive arm of government. We have not done that. The fact that the coalition may have guillotined debates in previous years when they were in government, to me, is not an excuse for what has occurred this week.