Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move a motion relating to the routine of business.

Leave not granted.

Pursuant to contingent notice, I move—

That so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent the opposition moving a motion relating to the conduct of business of the Senate, namely a motion to give precedence to Business of the Senate notices of motion Nos 2 and 3, referring matters to the Finance and Public Administration References Committee, general business notice of motion No. 1134, relating to estimates hearings, and all items at item 12 on the red.

This is not a motion I wish to move. But we are moving it to enable the Senate to deal with a range of motions, which were lodged yesterday and tabled in this chamber, to establish inquiries to ensure that, for example, Senator Sinodinos's involvement in the Free Enterprise Foundation is considered and to ensure that the Prime Minister's double tax plan at the COAG is considered, so that Australians have an opportunity to understand how it was that the Prime Minister came up with a double tax proposition and a proposition that Australia's public schools should no longer be funded by the federal government. In addition, there are great range of motions from crossbench senators, Greens senators and independent senators in this place.

Can I just set the framework here: we have a government that is treating this Senate as its plaything. The chaos we have seen from the way the Manager of Government Business and the Leader of the Government in the Senate have managed this chamber is extraordinary. First we had the Prime Minister requesting the Governor-General to prorogue the parliament and recall the parliament. On Monday we had the pomp and circumstance for the charade that was all about getting a double dissolution trigger that Mr Turnbull thought, at the time, would be to his advantage—but enough of that; I am sure that that will be a decision, ultimately, for the Australian people.

Then we had, as I indicated publicly to the government last week, a very short debate on the ABCC bill, because the Labor Party had said very clearly to the government: 'If you want an election, we will have an election. We are ready to fight an election. We are not going to delay the resolution of this bill. We will vote on it. You have your trigger. Let's deal with it.' So the government dealt with that and the abolition of the Road Safety Remuneration Tribunal, and then it went to the address-in-reply.

Then today we see two of the most senior cabinet ministers in the country—the Attorney-General and Leader of the Government in the Senate and the Minister for Finance and Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate—filibustering in this place to stop us getting to our motions. How extraordinary! You prorogue the parliament and reopen it in order to get these urgent bills through—you do not even bring one of them into the parliament—and then you come in and filibuster! You have senior cabinet ministers, who ought to be working on a budget and on a political and economic agenda that so far this government has not demonstrated, coming in here to filibuster debate.

We do not want to have to move a suspension of standing orders. I invite the Manager of Government Business to stand up in the chamber and say, 'We won't filibuster. We'll make sure we get to these motions', but I can almost guarantee that he will not. Why else would he have ensured that ministers and backbenchers came down in order to filibuster? I remember during the carbon price debate—carbon 'tax' debate, as they called it—that this government was both guillotining and filibustering in the same debate. We have the same kind of chaos and dysfunction on the other side now. We have a government that pulled us all back for an urgent and important Senate sitting with no agenda, no legislation before the chamber, and the best they can do is send two of their most senior people down to this chamber to filibuster. What an embarrassment! One may ask what are they so frightened of?

There are two motions, which are included in the motion that I have just moved, which are important. They include references to the Finance and Public Administration References Committee for inquiry into the Free Enterprise Foundation and also into COAG. Maybe they are worried about other motions. I do not know. There are quite a lot of other motions on the Notice Paper. But what sort of way is this to run the parliament? What sort of treatment of the parliament is this that you get this kind of shambolic management of the chamber with everybody being called back to Canberra—big ceremony, big pomp and circumstance? We had to deal with this economic issue, and it was dealt with within a day, and what have we been doing? The address-in-reply and a filibuster. That is not an agenda for jobs. It is not an agenda for health. It is not an agenda for schools. It is not an agenda for renewable energy. It is not an agenda for the future of the country. The best this government can offer is a filibuster. So we are moving this motion. We are prepared, if the Manager of Government Business wants to have a negotiation about other matters on the red. If he wants to have the condolence motion that he has been avoiding, we are happy to have that— (Time expired)