Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

It certainly takes a special blend of arrogance and incompetence to seek to both guillotine and filibuster in the same debate, and that is what this government is doing. It is fantastic. Not only did they use their numbers in the chamber this morning to put in place a guillotine; they now have a government senator asking questions of a minister who just went for 15 minutes on a Labor amendment, which has already been knocked off, in order to give the government time out there in the corridors to try and cut a deal to repeal the carbon price because they—and I use Mr Palmer's words—appear to have doublecrossed the Palmer United Party. As I said, it takes a special blend of arrogance and incompetence to both guillotine and filibuster, and that is what is occurring here.

While I am on my feet—and I will ask Senator Singh later, if she gets the call, to speak to this—the opposition opposes Schedules 2, 3, 4 and 5 in the following terms:

(4) Schedule 2, page 71 (line 1) to page 90 (line 27), to be opposed.

(5) Schedule 3, page 91 (lines 1 to 26), to be opposed.

(6) Schedule 4, page 92 (lines 1 to 29), to be opposed.

(7) Schedule 5, page 93 (line 1) to page 94 (line 4), to be opposed.

These amendments continue the position of the Australian Labor Party—that is, we want an emissions trading scheme.

I want to make sure we all understand what is occurring. The Senate had, obviously, a long debate yesterday—one of a number of debates—where the government sought without notice to come in and refuse to take up additional time that was offered up by the opposition to debate this legislation and to put in place a guillotine and a gag. In fact, I think I said by the end of this week we would see not five occasions on which the Senate was asked to support a guillotine and a gag on legislation, notwithstanding the offer by the opposition for more time. The government refused that. It got the numbers on a guillotine and a gag.

We then see a range of amendments being circulated in the chamber from Mr Palmer's party—and I understand they have a particular position. We had a sheet. We had one amendment, which was circulated. This morning we then had another revision to that amendment, which was circulated and, just before I got to my feet, there was a third revision to the Palmer United Party's amendment. We have Senator Cormann and Senator Ruston filibustering their own guillotined debate in order to enable further negotiation of the third version of the Palmer United's amendments on the carbon price. This is the calm, responsible and considered government that Mr Abbott promised. If you walk around the corridors, you can see all sorts of little huddles where these various amendments are being discussed.