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

I struggle to think of a bill that has been mismanaged to the extent that this one has. In 16½ years in the Senate, I struggle to think of another occasion when the government has mismanaged its legislative program and, in particular, mismanaged a bill to the extent that this government has mismanaged this bill and its legislative program this week.

It has been a disastrous week for the government. To date, there have been two government bills passed in non-controversial legislation yesterday. Negotiated in advance, all parties agreed, no issue—they passed yesterday. Otherwise, not a single government bill has passed. Four bills from the crossbench have passed. Twice as many bills have passed the Senate thanks to the work of Senators Lambie and Pocock, crossbench senators working cooperatively—and let me underscore the word 'cooperatively'—with the coalition and other senators to get something done. The crossbench has shown it can get something done. The crossbench has shown it can work cooperatively. But the government has not, and that is the mess the government has put itself in.

The coalition has been very clear. We support this bill. We've been clear on that for a long time. Senator Duniam, in particular, has articulated the good policy reasons why we support this bill, and I want to make that transparent to all. But this place operates on reasonableness and on give and take for the ability to get things done. It is for the government to manage the time in the Senate chamber appropriately. It is for the government, in managing that time, to engage cooperatively with other parties to get its agenda through, and the government has failed manifestly in engaging cooperatively with other parties because, right now, it's not engaging at all.

I want to be very clear. There has been no approach from the government to have constructive discussions with the opposition about time management for this bill—not today nor yesterday. It is simply a 'take it or leave it' approach from the government: 'We want to guillotine the bill, and, because you agree with the bill, you should agree with our guillotine.' That's not how this place works, and it's not how this place has ever worked. I listened to Senator McAllister earlier say, 'Well, we shouldn't be engaged in horse trading.' Frankly, Senator McAllister, I'm surprised that you could manage to say that with a straight face or that any of your colleagues could.