Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

What an absolute load of rot. If you want to hear about irony, the irony is Senator Cash of all people coming and lecturing the Senate about proper procedure and obeying rules and laws and procedures. I don't need to go over the history of Senator Cash when it comes to those issues.

But let's be very clear about what's going on here. What's going on here is a deal between the coalition and parts of the crossbench to engage in delay tactics. This is all about delay tactics so that we can't get to government business, which would enable us to deal with very important bills that the opposition has been very clear about for some time now, those being amendments to the Crimes Act, amendments to the Bankruptcy Act and, of course, the migration amendments that the government has put forward today as well. These are really important matters to deal with. They deal with matters of national security and personal security. But, instead of engaging in debate about those things and addressing the issues that have arisen, particularly in relation to the High Court decision of a few days ago, we've got more games between the coalition and parts of the crossbench to delay debate on those bills.

We have Senator Cash, on behalf of the opposition, saying that we could have dealt with this quickly if only we'd given leave to Senator Pocock. Why then did the opposition decide to vote against the closure motion that we just moved only moments ago? We attempted to close debate on this nonsense motion that seeks to direct the House of Representatives to do something, which the Senate, of course, has no right to do. It is a nonsense motion, with all due respect to Senator Pocock, and it's being supported by the coalition in an attempt to delay debate on the important bills: amendments to the Crimes Act and the Bankruptcy, and, of course, the migration bill. Every minute we spend dealing with this nonsense motion that seeks to direct the House of Representatives on what to do is a minute that we are not dealing with those issues around the Crimes Act and the Bankruptcy act or those migration amendments.

All week, we've been lectured by the opposition about the need to get on and deal with the migration amendments, and now, as we attempt to move towards that and in the process deal with those other amendments on the Crimes Act and the Bankruptcy Act, what do we see the opposition do? We see them again facilitate delays, filibustering and motions from the crossbench which have absolutely no power to find the House of Representatives in the first place.

We think that we should get on with government business. I note that this motion wasn't moved before we had private senators' time this morning. I note that it wasn't moved before we even got to private senators' time. It was only moved when we had the opportunity to get into government business and deal with those important matters of national and personal security which we've been attempting to deal with this morning.