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

I rise to make a contribution to the debate. The Greens have always said that the parliament can and should proceed, as long as the health advice says that it's safe to do so. That's why we did not support the suspension of parliament, effectively for six months, back in March. It is our view that there remained other ways to manage parliament sitting and that a suspension was not justified.

The Greens have been calling on the government to allow for remote participation in parliament for some time, and we are disappointed that it has taken this long to get to the place that we are now. It is clear that, like other workplaces across Australia, the federal parliament can and should continue to operate. I will, of course, acknowledge that we have all been very active and working very hard remotely and in our offices and participating in endless Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Webex and Skype meetings—and other virtual meetings; whatever virtual medium there is, we have been using it. But the parliament has not been sitting. Other workplaces have been adapting since the beginning of the year, yet the parliament has taken this long to get to this place.

We should not have missed the two important weeks of parliament at the beginning of the month simply because we didn't have this process in place. However, we are very pleased that it is now in place—and, as you can see, some of our Greens senators are up there on the screen; I can't see from here who the other person is. Senators should be able to carry out their duties remotely. Things such as moving motions are an important part of representing our constituencies. So the Greens, as noted in the procedure committee report that was tabled on Friday, are disappointed that senators are excluded from participating in some of the processes that operate in this place.

We do understand that meeting in parliament and section 20 of the Constitution is very important, but we are disappointed that some of the processes that are available when you're here in the Senate are not available to those participating remotely. We do appreciate that senators can participate in the Committee of the Whole. That is very important, but we're disappointed that they can't participate in some of the other processes that are available in the Senate, and during the review process that Senator Wong mentioned we would like to ensure that we look at how we can open the process up to enable participation in some of the wider processes that are available to the senators in the chamber.

Question agreed to.