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

I'll be brief as per my commitment to the Manager of Government Business. I thank her for not moving the customary guillotines on these things. It's tempting to rail against another Labor-Greens guillotine bill, but simply let the statistics show the add-on of guillotines of bills that Labor and the Greens hypocritically continue to pile on in this place. I particularly want to highlight to the Senate—particularly to the Greens and the crossbench as they negotiate with the government in relation to these matters—the continued erosion of opportunities for senators to make free contributions in this place in the way in which these guillotine motions are being structured.

On this side, we would much rather see significant, additional time provided for matters, as occurred more frequently in the past, where the Senate would sit later hours, longer hours and extra days to progress bills through. It's not to say that guillotines didn't occur, but certainly there were far more opportunities. This guillotine, whilst providing extra time for second reading speakers tonight, does so at the expense of the open ended adjournment debate on a Tuesday night, which is all too routinely being knocked out. This guillotine also removes statements by senators from consideration tomorrow.

The point I make to the government, to the Greens and to others on the crossbench who sign up to these guillotine motions is that it is eroding the capacity of individual senators, particularly senators on the crossbench and especially senators on the backbenches of both sides, to make free and open contributions on matters that may not otherwise be structured. President, I implore and urge the government and others to consider that, in terms of time management, this could have been done last night. That would not have removed the open ended adjournment and would not have impacted upon senators who are here on Tuesday. They would have planned their opportunity this week to raise important matters for their constituency and related to their committee work in a range of other ways.

Sorry, Senator Ayres. You may not care, but there are actually senators, diligent ones, on your side who I know like to use the adjournment contribution, as there are on our side and on the crossbench. We urge respect for that, rather than the continued erosion of those opportunities.