Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's very interesting to hear Minister Watt making his comments about the order of business in this chamber. I've been in this chamber for seven years now, through both sides of government, whether it be the coalition or Labor. I have never seen a government as dysfunctional as this government is at the moment. They guillotine and shut down debate. They don't even know what legislation they want to put up on a daily basis. They don't inform the Senate. We don't get the bills. We don't know what is happening. It's at the last minute that the government deals with issues.

When Senator Watt said, 'We want to deal with important bills,' I remembered the Prime Minister taking to the election that the workers of Australia were the most important people and that we've got to look after their rights and look after the workers. It was always 'Labor for the workers.' That's what I've always heard. But what has happened is that a bill has been put up that carves out of their dysfunctional IR bill to deal with the four most important issues for the workers of Australia. I'll tell you what the problem is: they're embarrassed that those four carved-out issues in the IR bill have passed the Senate, and they don't want it to go to the lower house and be dealt with. That's the whole problem. They don't want it dealt with and passed in the lower house. They couldn't possibly knock it back. It's part of their bill. They don't want to knock it back, because then they won't know what to do with the rest of their bill, since they know it won't get through the Senate. You're not interested in the Australian people, in the workers out there. This is all politics that you are playing.

Minister Watt got up and said 'important bills'. I'll tell you what those are. One is the Bankruptcy Amendment (Discharge from Bankruptcy) Bill 2023. It's administrative. All it does is move the time when someone is declared to be bankrupt to a few days down the track of when they actually get it in the hands of the authorities to declare them as bankrupt. The other is the Crimes and Other Legislation Amendment (Omnibus No. 2) Bill 2023. It is basically giving the minister the ability to extend the parole period. That's what it's about. The other part is about illicit drugs coming into Australia. 'Oh, we don't want illicit drugs in Australia,' but here you are in the Australian Capital Territory, where you're allowing them to have illicit drugs, and you said nothing about it. So why is this bill so important? Like I said, it's hypocrisy at its finest.

This should have been dealt with. If you really care about the workers out there, then you should just pass this. You've wasted the time of the Senate. You could have done it, but you've actually stopped it. It could have been passed. If you had let it go to the lower house, if you had let it pass today, it would have proven to the Australian people that you really do care about them. But this has proven you don't. You really don't. It's all politics that you're playing at the expense of the Australian people, which disgusts me to no end. I hope that people see this. I hope that people see through the Labor Party and the games that you play in this place. Get your act together if you want to lead this country.