Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I am disappointed that this is coming at this time, nearly Thursday afternoon. It has caught people unawares. They are largely noncontroversial bills, but No. 2, the VET Student Loans Bill, is not noncontro. I appreciate that there will be no divisions, because you are not seeking to change the practice of not having divisions after 4.30 pm, but that is an important bill and it is controversial so I am concerned about that particular bill being there. I know that the government already has the opposition onside, giving up general business, but I would like to lodge our strong concern about the timing of this and the fact that this proposal is too cute by half—the government took noncontro bills out of where you do noncontro and put in backpackers, because they have not been able to manage their legislative agenda, and then put them in general business time and added on a bill that is controversial. I realise we will not be doing any divisions, but it is too cute by half to be putting that on near six o'clock on a Thursday night when senators were not expecting it to be brought on at that time.

I am disappointed to be receiving notice of this so late, on a Thursday afternoon, when everybody knows that people have travel arrangements et cetera to take care of. The government did not mention this in 'whips' last night, which is the forum where we organise the management of the chamber. They gave up the non-controversial spot to address backpackers. We do need to. There has been a lot of effort in this chamber to get backpackers on the agenda. So they gave up their non-controversial time and now are seeking to use general business time, which is non-government time, to pursue these bills, because they have not been able to manage their legislative agenda.