Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

What you are proposing is not proper debate, Senator Brandis. This government actually believes that they can corral and get a vote in here tonight, and they want that to happen. They do not want to take their department's advice, which is to wait until 1 September. They think they can push this deal through now, because if they do that they will not have to speak to the National Catholic Education Commission, nor to the teachers across this country, nor to the representatives of every state and territory P&C and answer their questions. They will not have their dodgy figures scrutinised over the next few weeks. They are trying to snow the Senate. They are trying to suppress debate and proper scrutiny by pushing this through in the most outrageous manner.

There are some bills where I suppose this happens, but we are talking about the children of this nation. Fifty years in the making, Senator Brandis says. We can afford more than a couple of hours in the dark to make this dirty decision of this government. They have not proven they are worthy of the trust of the crossbench. They have betrayed promise after promise, and they have misled person after person and they have denied access to information. They stood up in here today and indicated that they were going to answer questions, but we have not even been able to get the documents with the facts. That is why you should not trust them to do this dirty deal in the next couple of days. We as the Senate should not be responsible. We need to get the whole of the community involved in the next three months, until September, to have a look at what this government proposes to ensure they are not pulling a swifty on anybody in this chamber. It is wrong. We should not support the suspension of the standing orders. (Time expired)