Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I rise, on behalf of the coalition, to support the suspension motion that has been moved by Senator Pocock. The irony of us now having to speak on it is that, had the government allowed Senator Pocock and the crossbench to move their motion—guess what, everybody?—we would already have had the vote. The Senate would then have shown its will to the chamber and—guess what?—we would already be on the next item of business. We've had the minister stand up here and give us a lecture in relation to wasting the time of the Senate, when I think a clear reading of Hansard will show that the actions taken by the government in (a) first denying leave, and then (b) seeking to put the vote, have, ironically, chewed up the time of the Senate.

Let us have a look at the motion that has been put before the Senate by Senators Lambie and Pocock: 'motion by leave'—if leave had been given, as I said, we would already have voted on it—'that a message be sent to the House of Representatives requesting that the House immediately consider the following bills together'. They are the bills that employers across Australia have agreed, the crossbench have agreed and the coalition have agreed are the non-controversial parts of what is an incredibly complex, incredibly controversial piece of legislation. But, in the spirit of being constructive and assisting the government in passing the parts of its legislation that the Senate agrees can actually go through, this motion has been moved today.

Ironically, when this was looked at by the Senate last week, I note that the entire chamber itself agreed that these bills should be passed. What then occurred, though, when it went to the House—and it's a quirk of the way the House works, and I see that Minister Burke is now saying, 'The opposition didn't quite get it right, and it meant we couldn't debate them.' As Senator Gallagher has correctly pointed out, the House controls its own destiny. They could have listed the bills on the Notice Paper. They could have done a lot of things if they actually wanted to debate these bills. If they wanted to work in a bipartisan manner with the opposition and with the crossbench, they could have rearranged their own business last week, and, guess what, we wouldn't have to be standing here today having a debate in relation to the four bills that, as I said, are considered to be the non-controversial parts of the legislation—the parts where employers across Australia have said, 'We agree these are important'—and we could actually put them through.

Colleagues, I think sometimes Labor forget what the role of the Senate is. Indeed, the last time I checked, we were called the states house, the house of review. We can continue with our important role as senators and discharge the responsibility that our respective states have bestowed upon us, and that is to properly scrutinise the rest of the legislation.

I do have to say I was a little concerned by comments made by Minister Burke in the other place last week which, in fact, were reflected in the comments that were put forward by the government about the motion moved last week—that apparently a vote for the motion was a vote for delay. When questioned about this in the House, Minister Burke made it clear that the government had no intention of following the will of the Senate in terms of when the committee reports next year, on 1 February, and they were going to bypass that; they wanted the committee to report earlier and they wanted to ram the bill through. Well, guess what? Sometimes in life you have to understand that that is not the will of the Senate. The will of the Senate was clearly articulated. In terms of the scrutiny of this bill, the Senate will now report next February. After that, it's up to the government. As for the four pieces of legislation we have here, the will of the Senate is clear: they should be passed.

Again I go to the irony of now being able to speak to this motion. Had the government just allowed Senator David Pocock and Senator Lambie to put their bill, it would have already been voted on and the government could have got on with the business of the day. But you decided to be too smart by half.