Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

Well, if you had taken a look at the speaking list for the Payment Times Reporting Bill 2020, you would see that the bill, including the amendments, would take us up to 11.45, the hard marker. We were giving the government the opportunity to agree that this should be prioritised and dealt with, to make sure we got this done before other matters before the Senate today. That was the idea of Senator Keneally. That was the reason she moved this today. It's pretty straightforward. If the government wants this done and wants it guaranteed to be done, this is a sensible way of timetabling the program. We think there is a risk that it won't be done, because the payment times legislation does have a lot of speakers. There are amendments and it could take us up to the hard marker. That was the reason we did it. It's quite sensible. I don't think it needed that kind of response from the government, frankly, particularly on a bill that they want done.

Senator Cormann interjecting—

We would have had just a few minutes to deal with it, reorder the program and get on with it.