Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

My colleague in the other place Jenny Macklin has made some statements around this particular decision, and I feel we have to note it, as well. This indicates a significant backdown from the government around these issues of the budget bills around social services. We could have avoided this process if their negotiations had been handled in a way that did not bring forward the bills in the way they came. This is a budget bill. We had that discussion in the last sitting. We came to this place and it was very clear that there were elements of the bill on these issues that would be able to be negotiated. We came into this place, and then new bills were created overnight.

In terms of this discharge motion, we are actually seeing a tidying up process. We believe that does happen from time to time in all kinds of records. But, just on this case, we think it is of note to say that we had to have a recreation of legislation overnight to ensure that there were things that could come to this chamber to be debated. The other half of all this process, which covered major issues, was able to be put aside— (Time expired)