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representatives vote 2023-11-14#3
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2024-06-30 13:22:20
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Title
Business — Rearrangement- Business - Rearrangement - Delete paragraph (8)
Description
<p class="speaker">Tony Burke</p><p>I won't speak long on this. I appreciate that any debate management motion is controversial in the House. I had planned at the start of the week that we weren't going to have manage this debate. We lost a large amount of time yesterday for purposes that still mystify me, where the opposition ran a particular strategy to make sure that four private members' bills did not turn up on the notice paper. They were successful in that strategy, but how on earth that was in their interests is beyond me. As a result of losing those hours of debate, it means now, in the ordinary time of the parliament, we're not going to be able to get through this bill this week.</p>-
- The majority voted against an [amendment](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/debate/?id=2023-11-14.107.1) to an [original motion](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/debates/?id=2023-11-14.106.2), which means the original motion will remain unchanged.
- ### Amendment text
- > *That paragraph (8) be omitted.*
- ### Original motion text
- > *That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the following from occurring in relation to proceedings on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023:*
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- > *(1) on Tuesday, 14 November when the order of the day relating to the second reading debate on the bill is called on following the conclusion of the matter of public importance and any quorum or division deferred under standing orders 55 and 133, the debate continuing without interruption until no further Members rise to speak, or the commencement of the adjournment debate at 7.30 pm;*
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- > *(2) notwithstanding standing order 31, if the second reading debate has not concluded earlier, at 8 pm the adjournment debate being interrupted and the bill being called on for further consideration, with the debate continuing until either:*
- >
- >> *(a) no further Members rise to speak; or*
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- >> *(b) 10.30 pm; .at which point, debate being adjourned and the House immediately adjourning until Wednesday, 15 November at 9 am;*
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- > *(3) on Wednesday, 15 November, when the order of the day relating to the second reading debate on the bill is called on following the conclusion of the matter of public importance, the debate continuing without interruption until no further Members rise to speak, or the commencement of the adjournment debate at 7.30 pm;*
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- > *(4) notwithstanding standing order 31, if the second reading debate has not concluded earlier, at 8 pm the adjournment debate being interrupted and the bill being called on for further consideration, with the debate continuing until either:*
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- >> *(a) no further Members rise to speak; or*
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- >> *(b) 10.30 pm; .at which point, debate being adjourned and the House immediately adjourning until Thursday, 16 November at 9 am; and*
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- > *(5) immediately following prayers on Thursday, 16 November, if necessary to complete the second reading stage of the bill, the bill being called on and questions being immediately put on any amendments moved to the motion for the second reading and on the second reading of the bill and any messages from the Governor-General under standing order 147 being announced;*
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- > *(6) debate on the bill to then be automatically adjourned;*
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- > *(7) when the bill is considered in detail, any detail amendments to be moved together as one set for the government, one set for the opposition, and one set per crossbench Member, with:*
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- >> *(a) one question to be put on all government amendments;*
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- >> *(b) one question to be put on all opposition amendments; and*
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- >> *(c) separate questions to be put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and .one question to be put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to.*
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- > *(8) any question on amendments provided for under paragraph (7) being put after no more than 20 minutes of debate, unless a Minister sets further periods of 10 minutes for debate;*
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- > *(9) when the third reading of the bill is moved by a Minister, the question being put immediately without amendment or debate; and*
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- > *(10) any variation to this arrangement being made only on a motion moved by a Minister.*
<p>While previously those opposite have objected when I've shortened the time from 15 minutes to 10 minutes, on this occasion I haven't done that. This simply keeps it at 15 minutes. We'll have the normal adjournment debate between 7.30 and 8.00, but then we'll continue debating the closing loopholes bill until 10.30, and then tomorrow we will do the same. On Thursday morning we will vote on the second reading. There are a couple of announcements that have to happen at the second reading of the bill that are covered, but after that we won't proceed with the in-detail stage until the bill is brought back on, and I advise the House of that to give people ample time to prepare amendments, which some members of the crossbench in particular have asked for. I won't be bringing the bill back for the in-detail stage until parliament returns for that final week.</p><p>I move:</p><p class="italic">That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the following from occurring in relation to proceedings on the Fair Work Legislation Amendment (Closing Loopholes) Bill 2023:</p><p class="italic">(1) on Tuesday, 14 November when the order of the day relating to the second reading debate on the bill is called on following the conclusion of the matter of public importance and any quorum or division deferred under standing orders 55 and 133, the debate continuing without interruption until no further Members rise to speak, or the commencement of the adjournment debate at 7.30 pm;</p><p class="italic">(2) notwithstanding standing order 31, if the second reading debate has not concluded earlier, at 8 pm the adjournment debate being interrupted and the bill being called on for further consideration, with the debate continuing until either:</p><p class="italic">(a) no further Members rise to speak; or</p><p class="italic">(b) 10.30 pm;   .at which point, debate being adjourned and the House immediately adjourning until Wednesday, 15 November at 9 am;</p><p class="italic">(3) on Wednesday, 15 November, when the order of the day relating to the second reading debate on the bill is called on following the conclusion of the matter of public importance, the debate continuing without interruption until no further Members rise to speak, or the commencement of the adjournment debate at 7.30 pm;</p><p class="italic">(4) notwithstanding standing order 31, if the second reading debate has not concluded earlier, at 8 pm the adjournment debate being interrupted and the bill being called on for further consideration, with the debate continuing until either:</p><p class="italic">(a) no further Members rise to speak; or</p><p class="italic">(b) 10.30 pm;   .at which point, debate being adjourned and the House immediately adjourning until Thursday, 16 November at 9 am; and</p><p class="italic">(5) immediately following prayers on Thursday, 16 November, if necessary to complete the second reading stage of the bill, the bill being called on and questions being immediately put on any amendments moved to the motion for the second reading and on the second reading of the bill and any messages from the Governor-General under standing order 147 being announced;</p><p class="italic">(6) debate on the bill to then be automatically adjourned;</p><p class="italic">(7) when the bill is considered in detail, any detail amendments to be moved together as one set for the government, one set for the opposition, and one set per crossbench Member, with:</p><p class="italic">(a) one question to be put on all government amendments;</p><p class="italic">(b) one question to be put on all opposition amendments; and</p><p class="italic">(c) separate questions to be put on any sets of amendments moved by crossbench Members; and   .one question to be put that the bill [as amended] be agreed to.</p><p class="italic">(8) any question on amendments provided for under paragraph (7) being put after no more than 20 minutes of debate, unless a Minister sets further periods of 10 minutes for debate;</p><p class="italic">(9) when the third reading of the bill is moved by a Minister, the question being put immediately without amendment or debate; and</p><p class="italic">(10) any variation to this arrangement being made only on a motion moved by a Minister.</p> <p class="speaker">Paul Fletcher</p><p>I move, as an amendment to the motion moved by the minister:</p><p class="italic">That paragraph (8) be omitted.</p><p>I want to explain why the opposition is doing this. The Leader of the House is proposing a number of things in this motion. The first is that we have some late nights to consider the omnibus fair work amendment, and the opposition has no problem with that. We're here to consider and debate legislation. I won't respond to the Leader of the House's attempt to attribute responsibility for this motion to others; the Leader of the House and the government have the numbers, and the Leader of the House is fully responsible for what happens in this House.</p><p>He's also responsible for paragraph (8) of this motion that has been moved. The effect of paragraph (8) is that there will be only 20 minutes of consideration-in-detail debate on each set of amendments. The government is seeking to crunch down the time for consideration in detail to stymie the meaningful work of this House and its members in considering and debating amendments and, indeed, the detail of the legislation line by line.</p><p>The Leader of the House has spoken about the second reading debate, which of course continues. That will see a series of government MPs repeating talking points about this government's so-called 'closing loopholes' bill. What he has sought to do at the same time is to crunch down—to minimise—the time allocated to this House to do its actual meaningful work which occurs during the consideration in detail process. Sadly, this is part of a pattern we have seen from this government and from this minister in the way that he and it have sought to deal with this closing the loopholes bill. This government fought tooth and nail against there being a proper Senate inquiry into this bill, which runs for hundreds of pages. Notoriously, the bill was introduced and there was little time to consider it before the second reading debate resumed—a timing that was quite different to the orthodox way in which bills progress in this House.</p><p>What's being proposed here seeks to gut, effectively, the normal operations of the consideration in detail process. Twenty minutes is a ridiculously short amount of time to allow detailed engagement on specific issues. I'd make the point that it would limit to 20 minutes each the time the crossbench members would have to engage in the consideration in detail stage of the debate. I might make the point also that the substance of what the Leader of the House is doing here is entirely at odds with his fine rhetoric during one of his many flourishes to which we were treated to yesterday. He had this to say:</p><p class="italic">I won't be cutting the speaking time, but I'm going to have to provide extra time for the House …</p><p>That's exactly what he's doing: he is cutting, in an extremely blatant way, the time available to members to engage in the consideration in detail process. That's the substance of the motion that the Leader of the House has put before the House today. That's why the opposition is moving to omit the objectionable paragraph (8), so that all members of this House—government, crossbench and opposition—have the opportunity to participate in the consideration in detail process and allow that process to work through as the standing orders contemplate, allowing this House to do its proper work.</p><p>Unfortunately, what the Leader of the House is trying to do, and what the government is trying to do, is to dramatically compress and constrain the operation of the consideration in detail stage of this debate. It's the most important part of the debate; it's the part of the debate in which any member has the opportunity to propose amendments and, of course, any member has the opportunity to ask questions of the minister. And this is on a bill, it must be said, which goes for several hundred pages and is on areas of enormous complexity. In his previous role, this Leader of the House spoke many times about the role of the House as a place of review and of scrutiny. It's the place where, on behalf of the Australian people, parliamentarians can test and scrutinise legislation being put forward by the government, including individual provisions. That's precisely what the consideration in detail process is supposed to do. And of course it's also the place where members can put forward amendments and have those debated on their merits. They can do their work to propose changes or ways in which the legislation might work more effectively.</p><p>But notwithstanding the many years of fine rhetoric on these topics that we heard from the Leader of the House in his previous role, now that he's got his hand on the levers he's not interested—not interested at all—in members of this House having the opportunity to engage in a meaningful way in what is, arguably, the most important stage of a bill going through this House. And so it's for that reason that the opposition is moving this amendment so that the consideration of detail process can happen in a meaningful fashion rather than being gutted, as the Leader of the House has sought to do.</p> <p class="speaker">Lisa Chesters</p><p>Is there a seconder for the amendment?</p> <p class="speaker">Kevin Hogan</p><p>I second the amendment moved by the Manager of Opposition Business, that amendment being the elimination of paragraph (8):</p><p class="italic">any question on amendments provided for under paragraph (7) being put after no more than 20 minutes of debate, unless a Minister sets further periods of 10 minutes for debate;</p><p>As the Manager of Opposition Business has just articulated very well, this is basically a gag order on what is an exceptionally important piece of legislation. The minister lamented earlier that it was never his fault. It's never the government's fault. He lamented the terrible things that we, as the opposition, did yesterday. They are the only reason he has to do this. We wasted time. We've cut debating time for this bill. This is the terrible thing we did. I will just remind the chamber that what we were doing yesterday was offering the government the opportunity to fast-track four section of this larger omnibus bill that could've already passed the chamber. They could've got up and supported those four elements of the bill and we could've moved on and done that, but the government chose not to do that. The government chose not to have us help them support four elements of this bill yesterday. The bill literally could've been fast-tracked.</p><p>As the Manager of Opposition Business just said, this government has a pattern of gag motions and of stopping this parliament from debating. If time is such a critical thing—if we need this time and we're cutting time short—I would remind the chamber that the government saw fit to cancelled a whole sitting week of parliament just recently. We lost four days of parliamentary debate through that process. The government saw fit to completely wipe a whole sitting of this parliament. To lament the terrible things that the opposition are doing—we took two or three hours yesterday to go through a process that we thought could've fast-tracked some elements of the bill—they're saying, 'You're terrible people. Now, because you've done that, we unfortunately have to do this.'</p><p>We support the extra hours of sitting. We support going through till 10.30 to debate this bill. As the Manager of Opposition Business said, the part that they're trying to gag is the consideration in detail. This is where a lot of amendments will be put. This is where a lot of hose amendments are discussed. The government are showing no interest in and no respect for the processes of this chamber. They can't lament time when, having just cancelled a week's sitting of parliament, they say, 'Oh, we haven't got time now. We've got to cut short the consideration in detail on what is a very important bill.'</p><p>This is a complex piece of legislation. This is, I think, overreach. These changes to the industrial relations system are very complex, and a lot of amendments will be moved, and they are amendments that will have been well considered. They will be amendments that a lot of people will want to have the right and the respect of going through the proper parliamentary process.</p><p>I say to the Leader of the House: the time that you say was wasted yesterday was time in which you literally could've supported those elements of the bill so as to have them already passed. You say that we're short of time. Well, you cancelled a week's sitting of parliament, which didn't seem to be a problem, yet you're now saying that you're short of time. This is complex legislation. This is important legislation. There will be many serious amendments moved. Again, this is a pattern of this new government. It's a bit of hubris and arrogance from this new government, I think. It's a gag order, and I support and second the motion of the Manager of Opposition Business.</p> <p class="speaker">Lisa Chesters</p><p>The original question was that the motion be agreed to. To this the honourable member for Bradfield has moved as an amendment that certain words be omitted from the motion. The question now is that the amendment be agreed to.</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>-
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