Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That, on Tuesday, 1 December 2015:

(a) the hours of meeting shall be 12.30 pm to adjournment;

(b) any proposal pursuant to standing order 75 shall not be proceeded with;

(c) the routine of business from not later than 7.20 pm, shall be government business order of the day no. 2 (Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Bill 2015);

(d) government business be called on after consideration of the bill listed in paragraph (c) and considered till not later than 9.30 pm today; and

(e) the question for the adjournment of the Senate shall be proposed at 9.30 pm.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Here we are on the Tuesday in the last week of sitting and we are getting an hours motion just for tonight. We still do not know what the government finally intends to do for the rest of this week to get their agenda through. Yesterday we had five rearrangements of government business. Today we have had a rearrangement from the draft to the red. How many times is the business of the Senate going to be rearranged while the government makes up its mind about what it wants? How many other bills are going to be coming in? We are going to be having a discussion about exempting bills from the cut-off order, as we were yesterday for the Labor 2013-14 Budget Savings (Measures No. 2) Bill 2015, which we are now expected to discuss as well. We hear rumours about other bills that other ministers want through.

So here we are in the final week. We did not manage any of the business last week. We are expected to sit late because the adjournment is endless tonight—not endless, sorry. It is unlimited hours. I always call it the 'endless' adjournment. Whips tend to do that, folks, because it does feel like that. It certainly feels that way when you are still here at 12 or one o'clock in the morning. There is an unlimited adjournment tonight, so we will be sitting very late. The expectation from government, I presume, is that they still want other bills through and they expect us to be sitting here late on Thursday. This happens every year. The government know that they need to manage these bills through this process, and yet they leave it till 12.30, as we sit here on a Tuesday, to say, 'You are going to be sitting late tonight.'

We do not know what the agenda will be, because, as I said, it changes all the time. Maybe we are going for a record here. Yesterday, from my experience here, was a record in terms of the number of times that government business changed order. Tonight we are supposed to be debating the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Allegiance to Australia) Bill 2015 as a special bill when it is listed at No. 2 on the red. What does the government want? Do they want to debate it at No. 2, or do they want to debate it late tonight? In fact, have they put that on specially tonight because they think no-one will be listening? The government have had plenty of opportunities to map out their agenda, to not rush this process and to be clear about what they wanted to get through the Senate: which urgent bills, which budget bills and which special bills actually need to get through tonight. And yet we still have not seen that agenda.

I suspect that on Thursday morning we are going to get another hours motion to say we will sit endlessly on Thursday night, with no limit. The Greens will not be supporting this hours motion. The government has had plenty of time to get its act together, to get its agenda dealt with through this place. We will not be supporting this hours motion.

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have a few observations to make in relation to the program having changed on a few occasions over the last day or two. I should indicate, and it is probably well known to colleagues in this place, that some of those rearrangements have been at the request of ministers, some of the rearrangements have been at the request of the Labor Party and some have been at the request of the Greens. I cannot recall if there have been any at the request of crossbenchers, so I will not make that statement.

I will just indicate, as I often say, that management of this chamber is a collective exercise, given there is no one grouping in this place that has the numbers. From time to time, there will be requests from different groupings to reorder the business. Sometimes, absolutely, it is at the request of the government on the basis of individual ministers, but certainly at other times it is at the request of other groupings in this place. I just make that as a statement of fact. I would also indicate that this week there have been a couple of meetings of leaders, whips and managers, which involve those officeholders as well as all crossbench senators, and this motion is really the distillation of the range of views that were expressed around the table. I do not indicate by that that there was unanimous agreement but certainly this motion is the product of those discussions.

Question agreed to.