George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move a motion to vary the order agreed to earlier relating to the hours of meeting and the routine of business for today.

Leave not granted.

Pursuant to contingent notice standing in the name of the Leader of Government in the Senate, I move:

That so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to provide that a motion relating to the hours of meeting and the routine of business for today may be moved immediately and determined without amendment.

The purpose of this motion, of course, is to enable the important business with which we have to deal before we rise for the Christmas break to be dealt with. We thought yesterday when leaders and whips met in my conference room that we had agreement in relation to these matters. We thought that, through a series of mutual accommodations, we had arranged a sensible program so that the outstanding legislation that is time sensitive or otherwise urgent could be dealt with today. Unfortunately, that agreement has been vacated, as we have seen in the chamber, in the last hour or so, so it is necessary to move this motion.

The bills that remain to be dealt with and are time sensitive are: the VET Student Loans Bill 2016; the Civil Nuclear Transfers to India Bill 2016; the Veterans' Affairs Legislation Amendment (Budget and Other Measures) Bill 2016; the Income Tax Rates Amendment (Working Holiday Maker Reform) Bill 2016 (No. 2), the so-called backpacker tax legislation; and the Superannuation (Departing Australia Superannuation Payments Tax) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2016.

The last two weeks have been busy. There is no doubt about that. They have been a great two weeks for the government and a great two weeks for the Senate in terms of the legislative achievements which this government, in the teeth of bitter opposition from the Australian Labor Party, has been able to achieve. Nevertheless, you would have thought that on the very, very last evening of the Senate year, before we exchange Christmas greetings to one another, that there would be at least enough sense of cooperation from the Labor Party to facilitate the discussion of these bills. Nevertheless, that has not been in evidence, as the denial of leave for me to move this motion itself shows.

The Australian public expect us, when we come to Canberra, when we come to parliament as legislators, to conduct the public business in an appropriate manner. When we met in my conference room yesterday afternoon, all of the participants in that meeting, from all points of view in the chamber—opposition, Greens, crossbench and government—remarked that, by comparative standards, the number of bills to be dealt with on the last sitting day was relatively few. It was a very short list. There were only seven packages of bills. We have dealt with some of them and there is absolutely no reason why the Australian Labor Party should now want to filibuster and delay the conduct of the debate in relation to the remaining bills; most of them are non-controversial, at least as between the government and the opposition. But Labor—apparently with its nose out of joint because of the accommodation that has been reached in relation to the backpacker tax—has decided to behave—