Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

I know that Senator Hanson wasn't at the crossbench party room—if you could call it that—discussion when these issues were highlighted, but, if she wants to screech at the end of the chamber, let me go back to the other point, which was: had we proceeded in the way we should have, in an orderly way, we would indeed still be on the bill that she proposed and we would not have needed to deal with her subsequent proposal that we move to a very contentious bill, the Plebiscite (Future Migration Level) Bill 2018.

The opposition is opposed to that bill and is opposed to time in this debate being used to address that bill in a way that just screams slogans on this important issue. I was surprised that the government, given how things transpired last week in relation to race and migration issues, also were not opposed to adjourning debate on Senator Hanson's bill. I think the way that both the Senate and the House dealt with this issue last week was the way in which these matters should be addressed. Last week was a week where we saw this chamber and the parliament stand together against racism. We have a situation where the government now has supported a motion to bring on debate on a bill that would seek to divide our nation on the basis of race and religion.

Labor opposed that matter being brought on both because of the substantive issues and also because of the procedural issues. It was an inappropriate use of private senators' time. It takes agreement amongst all senators to manage limited time in this space. As it turns out, I suspect Labor have forgone our time today, in what was a lengthened debate, because the majority of the Senate did not want to move on to this second bill, which had been introduced to the chamber with insufficient time for senators to be satisfied with what was proceeding. That's not just Labor and that's not just the Greens; even Senator Anning, who has obviously put a lot of attention into this issue and circulated these amendments, was not happy for the debate to proceed without allowing adequate time to deal with these matters. This chamber cannot deteriorate into sloganising these important race issues.

I'm pleased that, when Senator Hanson moved that the first bill be adjourned to get to her matter, the Senate opposed it. I hope that in the future, though, in relation to private senators' time, we will by agreement amongst the various parties be able to manage better arrangements to deal with the timeslots allocated to each group. But, on this occasion, the first proposal was that the opposition not even have any time. The next proposal was that, yes, the opposition could have some time, but the Greens wouldn't have any time. It's not a surprise that the proposals to carve up time were opposed.