Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That general business orders of the day No. 76 and No. 63 not be proceeded with today.

Question agreed to.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Because we have such a congested and important list of matters to deal with in the next five days of sittings, I am not going to oppose this motion from the government. However, the precedent here of the government moving to amend private members’ time is not a good one. It is a matter for the opposition and the crossbench. We get very little time in this place and I do not believe the government should be ordering the business for private members. Moreover, as I have made clear a number of times before, I think private members’ time ought to be not only kept intact but also, in fact, extended.

I will not get into a debate now about the need for a much better defined private members’ time with the ability for private members legislation to pass, but we will be having a debate on that soon enough. The move here is really to enable government business to be brought back on at the expense of private members’ business when there are important pieces of legislation that I think should be dealt with. I have a contrary view to the government on this. The Greens have a contrary view to the government on this. While we are not going to get into a long debate about this at the moment, it is very important that that view be heard by the government.

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to place on record that my office contacted Senator Brown’s office about this motion procedurally, there having been, as we understood it, an agreement that the only matter that would proceed would be the first bill on the list of bills and that it was necessary to clean up the list for that purpose. The discussion took place and as far as we were aware there were no issues with the moving of this motion. We believed it was procedural. We hear what Senator Brown says and I can assure him that it is not our intention to establish any precedent of interfering with general business in any way. On this occasion, this was a procedure to give effect to what we understood was an agreement.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The opposition will be supporting the government’s motion but I do agree with Senator Brown in respect of the lack of clarity in relation to general business this afternoon. I should indicate to Senator Brown that it is general business and not private members’ business, but I think it is a matter that the Procedure Committee should discuss in future in order to more clearly define what happens in general business. I do note that I understand from a motion previously moved in the chamber today the Senate will actually have the potential to divide if required at the conclusion of general business. This has not happened before in my time here, and I think we just need to have those matters clarified by the Procedure Committee and clearly step out issues that govern general business time. Maybe then, Senator Brown, the opposition and the minor party crossbench will have greater clarity about the time available for use by them.

Question agreed to.