Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move a motion relating to the routine of business today, as circulated.

Leave not granted.

Pursuant to contingent notice standing in my name, I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent Senator Birmingham moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to provide that a motion relating to routine of business today be moved immediately and be determined without amendment or debate.

President and colleagues, the motion I seek to move today is a simple one. It would seek to give precedence during the bulk of government business time today, starting immediately, to the Constitution Alteration (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice) 2023. The effect of this motion would be to ensure we start debate on the Constitution alteration bill earlier today than would otherwise be the case. It would not change the open-ended nature of today's debate. It would not in any way compromise the commitment that we have given as the Liberal Party and that exists, I think, across this chamber to ensure this bill passes through the chamber so that Australians ultimately get to have their say in relation to this proposal.

What this motion would do is help to ensure that, when we are debating something as serious, important and significant as amending Australia's Constitution, we minimise the extent to which detailed consideration of that debate drags on into the night and potentially the early hours of the next morning. It would ensure that the debate started now, as soon as this motion passed, and that we actually had more of that debate occurring through the normal, considered time of the Senate during daylight hours. It would also ensure that we would not trade off the timely and proper consideration of the Constitution alteration bill with consideration of other matters—particularly the budget and appropriations bills—currently subject to guillotine. Those bills can still be considered next week through the normal course of events, as would be appropriate.

I would ask particularly the Greens and the crossbench, but also the government, to consider what is the best-practice approach for how we approach and consider amending Australia's Constitution, and what is the best-practice way for this Senate chamber to give the most thoughtful and serious consideration to budget and appropriations bills and Constitution alteration bills. What we can best do for that is ensure that we get on with the Constitution alteration bill.

It should not be a bill that is essentially only considered by night in the Senate. We have facilitated during the course of the week an agreement across the Senate chamber for additional hours for speeches in the second reading debate to continue, and there are still a good number of those to be concluded. But then we will move into the committee stage, and in that committee stage there will rightly be questions asked about the effect of the Constitution alteration bill. There are also, as I understand it, from some parts of the crossbench and potentially some other senators amendments that will be proposed to the Constitution alteration bill. Far better that we get to those matters several hours earlier than that we face the situation of them being dealt with later and later at night or possibly even into tomorrow. That's the effect of this. Then, next week, with a full Senate sitting week and the confidence that the Constitution alteration bill, in one form or another, will have passed this chamber, we can have considered debate in relation to the appropriation bills, budget matters, and the other bills that are before us and currently subject to the government guillotine.

I implore the government to think about this as a sensible way forward. It's not seeking to be obstructionist. It is seeking to ensure, consistent with many of the debates we've had in this chamber about needing to operate in a family-friendly way and about needing to operate the chamber in ways that bring out the best of possible debates, that on something such as the Constitution alteration bill that that is what we do. It is disappointing that the approach of legislation by exhaustion has been adopted for this by having the open-ended debate tonight, but we respect the government's desire to have this bill concluded during this week of settings and we are not seeking to vary that. We are simply seeking to ensure that we have the type of considered debate that amending Australia's Constitution best warrants. I say to the Greens and the rest of the crossbench: if you want to ensure that we have thoughtful debate and can move through it in the most orderly way possible, I urge you to support this motion.