Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

You go back and read what you were saying, because it was definitely leading right down that path. When I get the Hansard, I will put it right under your nose. You have already misrepresented the AEC's position. I have had the Hansard here and have cited it on several occasions to demonstrate how you were not following, as you were claiming, that position. You showed you did not really know what happened in the JSCEM's considerations and you have misrepresented the AEC's position on several occasions. So please do not take that holier-than-thou attitude now.

Add to that these glib comments and insults flying across the chamber. 'That is so two hours ago' was one comment I heard. I wanted to refer, and I will now refer, to a complaint that came to my office. It was not two hours ago; it was about an hour ago. The complaint that came to my office an hour ago was: 'I think that this matter and how it is being dealt with is a form of the gag. I am here listening and the coverage was shut off at midnight.' The coverage of this debate was shut down at midnight.

An honourable senator interjecting—

It is! In terms of public transparency and the processes of this parliament, to shut down the public broadcast of our considerations is appalling. Again this highlights the process. The way this person represented the issue to my staff was that this was just another form of the gag. The Greens are getting pretty experienced at this: 'Let's force the debate to occur late at night. Let's slide it through. Let's deal with it as legislation by attrition.' They want to sit here and wear people down rather than justify their case.

Honourable senators interjecting—

What does that lead to? It leads to the sorts of unhinged contributions we are hearing now. Senator Xenophon has rightly chosen this time to reinforce his point, because Senator Xenophon knows what the alternatives are—and we have used those alternatives in the past

At this hour of night, what a competent government would be doing is saying, 'How close are we to making progress on this?' And if we were not close to making significant progress then we would suspend and commence again the next day, after senators have had an opportunity to get some sleep. But this is not what is happening, and that is why I move:

That progress be reported and the committee have leave to sit again on the next day of sitting.

The CHAIRMAN: The question is that progress be reported and the committee have leave to sit again on the next day of sitting.