Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would also like to add my comments to the debate this afternoon. Labor—dare I say 'in collusion with the Australian Greens'—is showing some crocodile tears: 'Oh dear, parliament has been recalled to discuss issues that are important to Australian small businesses!' Indeed, parliament has been recalled to discuss ideas of importance to the Australian trucking industry. Oh dear, shock horror! That is not reason enough to bring back the parliament.' But if we reflect briefly on the events of the last afternoon, what have we seen? We have seen a monumental mess-up. Senator Carr, either operating on his own or operating under instructions from Labor's Senate leadership—who knows—moved a motion to take note of answers. That tripped him into chaos, and there was chaos and drama on the Labor side.

Labor is now trying to restore the order of the Senate because of an error that they made, a miscalculation that they made—or, more specifically, that Senator Carr made. Senator Wong's motion this afternoon tries to cast doubt over the motivation of the government in calling back the Senate and the House of Representatives. Put simply: what we saw, as commented on by Senator Fifield, is that when the spotlight is put on the Senate chamber it acts responsibly. That is why we could get passage of the RSRT legislation. That is why 35,000 owner-businesses in the trucking industry feel safer today than they did yesterday. That is the first point. The second point is that Labor held firm to their lack of commitment, their lack of resolve, to end corruption in Australia's construction industry. Those two important issues were exposed for the whole country to see yesterday. And we come to the Senate chamber this afternoon and Senator Wong has tried to paint that as some sort of tricky motivation on the part of the government. That is not true.