David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—Senator Day and I have sought today's 10-minute allocation for the crossbench. We are the sponsors of the bill on this matter. We have been allocated none of the crossbench allocation for speaking in urgency motions or MPIs since we started in the Senate in July. By contrast, the Greens have been allocated 54 of the 80 minutes of MPI and urgency motion time since December and a higher proportion in the previous period.

We would be comfortable with the Greens receiving an allocation of today's crossbench time based on their proportion of the crossbench, but we need an agreement that this occur in each MPI and urgency debate—including those where they propose the topic. To date, the position of the Greens has been to use all the crossbench allocation for MPIs and urgency debates when they propose the topic and half the allocation when they do not propose the topic. This is not proportionality.