Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens understand how important it is to deal with the High Court decision in relation to the Financial Framework Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 3) 2012, and we have very strong and clear views about it, including the need to properly recognise that the High Court has ruled there needs to be a readjustment of influence or power between the executive and the parliament. We have always supported more power being vested in the parliament. We think it is a really important ruling and we think it needs proper discussion. We also recognise the urgency of allowing existing programs to continue and not putting them in jeopardy. So I want to inform the government that we are prepared to give this matter precedence over matters of public interest at 12:45 today, but we are not prepared to have it time managed. We think that the debate should continue and should take precedence over other business, but it should be allowed to be debated in the Senate's time. Clearly we have amendments we want to deal with and, on that basis, I informed the government that we would be prepared to give it precedence over other government business but we are not prepared to put a time limit on the debate.