Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

'Lazy!' the senators on the other side throw out—lazy to spend time on MPIs rather than legislation. They may want to argue that our time here in this chamber is not about legislation, and I challenge them to do that, but I am perfectly satisfied with that point. As senators, we are here to legislate.

This year we have had four MPIs in seven sitting days—as many as Labor had in an entire year. How can the Australian people take the coalition seriously with this reckless waste of time? There has been no proper debate and there have been no proper issues, just mindless attack and negativity—Mr No comes to the Senate. The coalition is using whatever means it can under the standing orders of the Senate to stifle debate, to truncate government legislation time and to grandstand, and I anticipate we will have more of that today. The coalition has no interest in debating, reviewing or engaging with the policy challenges facing our country. It uses every delay tactic and every opportunity it can find to slow down business in this place.