Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I should indicate at the outset the reasons why the government denied leave for Senator Milne to move her substantive motion, which is the same reason the government will be voting against the motion to suspend standing orders. There are several reasons. The first and by no means the primary reason is that, yes, Senator Milne did circulate this motion through the chamber moments before the Senate sat but there was no reasonable period of notice given to the other senators in this place to consider what it was that the Greens were putting forward.

We do have an order of business in this place. We do have allocated time for government business. We do have allocated time as well for private senators' business. We do have allocated time for a range of contributions from colleagues in this place, and a very good reason always needs to be put forward if those arrangements are to be disturbed. My first point is that I do not think that the appropriate courtesies and notice have been observed in relation to this matter nor do I think a decent rationale has been put forward to change the arrangements for today.

The second and perhaps more significant reason for denying leave and opposing the motion to suspend standing orders moved my Senator Milne is the very long established convention and practice observed by both the coalition government and by also the Australian Labor Party in government—and I do not want to pre-empt whatever the Prime Minister will be saying today—that the deployment of Australian Defence Force personnel in whatever capacity and in whatever way is a decision for the executive government of the day. We do not have the system of the United States here where the congress needs to endorse or give approval to certain actions in relation to armed service personnel. We have a different system here.

We follow the Westminster conventions in this place. As I said, it is something that has been observed by both Labor governments and coalition governments that the Australian Defence Force personnel and their deployment is a decision from the executive government of the day. Now that is not to say that it is not appropriate for those deployments to be debated and discussed in the chambers of the Australian parliament. That is not to say that it is not appropriate for there to be the parliamentary scrutiny and questioning of those decisions. We have the forums and the formats of question time in both places. We have a range of other parliamentary mechanisms where these matters can be examined and debated. And there have been occasions where there has been the provision of the opportunity to debate the decisions of government. But we have not and do not accept as a government that there is or should be a requirement for parliamentary approval for the deployment of Australian Defence Force personnel. That is the practice and I think it is appropriate in the context of our particular system of government.

So it is for those reasons that the government denied leave for the Australian Greens to move their substantive motion and it is also for those reasons that the government will not be supporting the motion to suspend standing orders. We do not think the case has been made and we do not support the concept that parliamentary approval is or should be required. These are matters, appropriately, for the elected government of the day.