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

I am moving this motion, which refers to the hours of business, as Senator Wong had previously put forward. In terms of the advice that we have received, we originally had the suspension to allow the particular issues around hours and the motions which we wished to deal in preference. That was put forward. Now, I am moving the second part which says that we want that motion to be heard without amendment or debate, and immediately.

It is important, Mr President, that we actually know that the Senate is clearly aware about the process. We have heard some commentary from the government—and I understand that we have to be clear—that seeks to say that we are trying to, somehow, confuse or mislead the Senate. That is absolutely not true. The reason that we brought forward the motion this afternoon, and the need we had to go into suspension, was that the government denied the ability for us to move forward a motion to change the order of business. We were clearly concerned that, and we believed that it was intensely important that, important issues on the red that we had come here to consider this afternoon—important issues around the formation of committees and around a range of notices of motion, some of which had been carried over from the last sitting of the parliament—were considered by the Senate this afternoon before the time ran out for the debate, and that we would have every senator able to participate in this debate without losing senators.

One of the core issues has been that the hours of business that were given to the Senate when they brought the Senate back for the extended period that could have been—