Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

It is worth explaining to the chamber, is it not, what just happened? What just happened was that the government voted against reporting their own bill out of the committee stage—the bill they drafted. And why did they do that? It's very unusual. I don't think I have ever seen the government vote against their own bill. As far as I can tell—and I will be interested to see how this unfolds—this was to give Senator Hanson, who was running late and who's now appeared in the chamber, the chance to move her amendments, which benefit her. This is exactly about the government using all of their numbers to protect the financial interests of Senator Hanson. What a disgrace! What an embarrassing abuse of chamber process—to prevent your own bill from exiting committee to help one person on the crossbench move amendments designed to financially benefit her. What a disgrace!