Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

Most disorderly. I know we've all been here and we're going to be scratchy today, but I've only got a couple of minutes. If we make good progress—that is, if we are dealing with the amendments and we're not just having a long filibuster from all of those opposite—then we are very open to facilitating private senators' time tomorrow morning. But we are not in a position to make that decision now, because, if we see what we've been advised we will see, you will just take that time tomorrow to delay dealing with safeguards again. So I think it's very reasonable, now that the Senate has expressed a view on the hours motion—which we did when we passed it yesterday—that, if we are able to provide that hour tomorrow and still allow people to put their amendments and have a debate over those amendments, we give you our commitment that we will facilitate that, as a sign of good faith. But we're not at that position yet, because we don't know how today is going to roll.

If last night was any kind of measure of how we're going to do that, it's not looking that crash-hot, to be honest. So I would say to those opposite: work with us, even though we accept that you oppose the bill and think the sky is going to fall in and all of what we heard last night. Work with us to facilitate the committee stage, and then there will be no concern at all about private senators' time being facilitated by the government tomorrow. The Senate has taken a view on the motion yesterday that we want to prioritise this bill. We want it put through. We had to put some management around it because we knew that this was not going to be smoothly facilitated through the parliament. No matter how many hours we put on it, we would have been seeing delaying tactics from those opposite. We saw that in the strength of the second reading remarks last night.

As I said: engaging with us on the hours motion didn't happen; delaying getting to safeguards today is not a good sign of where we're going to end up; and, if we get to where we need to get to at a reasonable time tonight, then there is no issue. We will absolutely, totally and very happily facilitate private senators' time for the opposition tomorrow. But we also need to make sure that we deal with this bill, that everyone has the opportunity to put their amendments and to have their say, and that we are able to deal with that by 1 pm tomorrow. I think changing the motion in advance of that will put at risk an orderly passage of that bill.