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senate vote 2018-08-20#3
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2018-10-04 17:59:00
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Title
Motions — Suspension of Standing Orders- Motions - Suspension of Standing Orders
Description
<p class="speaker">Barry O'Sullivan</p><p>Pursuant to the contingent notice standing in my name relating to formal business, I move:</p><p class="italic">That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the motion being moved immediately and determined without amendment or debate.</p>- The majority voted against a [motion](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?id=2018-08-20.122.1) to suspend the usual rules so that a vote can happen. In parliamentary jargon:
- > *That so much of the [standing orders](https://www.peo.gov.au/learning/fact-sheets/standing-orders.html) be suspended as would prevent the motion being moved immediately and determined without amendment or debate.*
<p>I was put on notice of the fact that formality would be refused to this motion today, but I'm at a disadvantage in that I don't understand the motive of the Australian Labor Party in resisting this motion. So my contribution needs to anticipate what their argument may be, and no doubt they'll have the courage to take to their feet to particularise why they've resisted the motion. I know why they've resisted it. It's because a bill will be introduced into the Queensland parliament today that liberalises abortion in my home state all the way through to late-term partial-birth abortion. We all know what that involves. That's a partial birth of a child before instruments are applied to its cranium, and it's crushed a minute or so from birth. Its opportunity at life is measured in seconds.</p><p>Our friends in the Labor Party sitting opposite don't want to expose that some of their senators would support this motion. That's what this is about. It can't be about arguments around comity or states' rights, because in this very place, you might recall, Deputy President, the Labor Party supported and, in fact, engineered such a motion. The architect of that motion, who was here at that time—a senator who will go unnamed—wasn't bright enough to have thought about it himself. He was a crossbencher. In relation to investigating the actions of the Queensland state government, the motion made reference, in particular, to reviewing all legislation implemented by the Newman government to determine its appropriateness and compatibility with social justice and natural justice requirements—their words. It was a motion supported by them. A select committee was engineered, occupied and managed by them. So I don't anticipate that their resistance will be around comity or the Commonwealth government taking an interest in state legislation. Remember: once this abortion opportunity is completely liberalised, the Commonwealth will have an interest in these abortions because they'll be available through the public system.</p><p>They are also anticipating that part of the legislation will be that any doctor who conscientiously objects to the conduct of an abortion will themselves be exposed to criminal processes. Think about that. These men and women, who have taken the Hippocratic oath, which has lasted 2,500 years, will be subject to reaction from the state if they fail to euthanise a child who's seconds away from living.</p><p>There's a lot of science, and I've listened today, and I don't want to digress. We've got the Greens, who will obviously support this lack of formality. They are arguing about a child in Manus—someone whom I have great sympathy for. According to the senator, that child is near death. But there is not one mention of these babies, not yet born, whose deaths are guaranteed in a partial-birth abortion. Now listen! We need to stand up; humanity needs to stand up. The world needs to look at how you vote on this motion today. I say that to every one of you, every single person in this chamber. Your vote denying formality for the question to be put to the floor of the Senate means that you support late-term partial-birth abortions. I can hardly hold the thought: a baby who is seconds off being named, or even prenamed in many cases—certainly, in my family line and in most of the families I'm involved with—will be euthanised with a blunt instrument where they, first of all, sever the spine and then compress the cranium.</p><p>This isn't about denying formality; this is about you not wanting to put your foot on the sticky paper of this abhorrent practice that's about to be introduced by legislation. <i>(Time expired)</i></p> <p class="speaker">Jacinta Collins</p><p>The Labor Party will oppose the suspension motion but not for the reasons that Senator O'Sullivan has anticipated. Let me describe one basic Senate procedure to Senator O'Sullivan, but he should understand this, given his length of time here. It is the prerogative of any individual senator to deny formality, and that is what occurred. But, in relation to this suspension motion, the Labor Party will be opposing it for the reasons we have outlined on at least two occasions when motions such as this have been put forward in formal business.</p><p>Formal motions have been a feature of the Senate's routine of business since the beginning. They exist to deal with business expeditiously or, to put it in plain English, quickly. To use parliamentary jargon, they are a blunt instrument to deal with routine and uncontroversial matters like extensions of time for committee reports or authorisations for committees to meet—simple matters that do not require discussion. Unfortunately, sometimes, like now, that point seems not to be well understood. More and more, the formal business procedure is being misused or overused by some senators for complex and sensitive matters. That is not appropriate and it abuses this important feature of the Senate's routine of business.</p><p>But let me conclude this statement with one further point, given Senator O'Sullivan's anticipation: I am one senator that will not cop a lecture like that on abortion.</p> <p class="speaker">James McGrath</p><p>As the substantive motion involves a matter of conscience, in line with longstanding practice, government senators are free to vote in accordance with their own consciences on matters relating to the substantive motion and any procedural motions.</p> <p class="speaker">Derryn Hinch</p><p>I will oppose the suspension as well and will support the Labor Party on this. Deciding to terminate a pregnancy must be the most traumatic time in a woman's life, and to see a middle-aged white man in old-fashioned braces, with equally old-fashioned ideas, lecturing women on what they should or should not do with their bodies is disgraceful and insulting to all women. This motion has no place in this chamber. I raised the same objection when Senator Anning attacked exclusion zones for abortion clinics.</p><p>I believe using the Hippocratic oath and 2,500 years of Western culture is grotesque. I said the last time that I was ashamed, as a male senator, to even discuss today's agenda with female members of my staff. I will try to excuse this zealotry on the grounds of religious beliefs, but Senator O'Sullivan once told me he had lost his faith in God when, as a policeman, he saw what men created in His image could do to children. If this move hadn't been taken by Labor today, my plan was to get up and try to seek leave to make a short statement and say to Senator O'Sullivan: I implore you to withdraw this insensitive, disgraceful motion.</p> <p class="speaker">Cory Bernardi</p><p>I feel impelled to add a contribution to this debate about Senator O'Sullivan's general business motion regarding abortion, and I must express how disappointed I am in Senator Hinch's personalisation of it. Simply because another senator has a different point of view, he targets him as a 'middle-aged white male'. Are you ageist? Are you sexist? Are you racist? That is the question, Senator Hinch, because it stinks of hypocrisy.</p><p>The substantive motion here—and I take the point of Senator Collins, that, if you go back into the ideal world of what formal notices of motion were about, they were meant to be uncontroversial, blunt instruments. The reality is that in the 12 years I've been here they haven't been used in that manner. In fact, they are used now as debating points, where everyone gets to make a one-minute statement, and they raise all manner of contentious issues for debate. The tortuous language that is used obviously stops people from supporting them because of one particular political point or other that is made. So, in effect, they have lost their original intent, Senator Collins. I would put that to you.</p><p>I also respect the fact that Senator Collins is not someone who should be lectured to about this, because she's a person of very strong values. But I will reject entirely the merits of the argument that late-term abortion has any business in this country—not only the horrors of it, as Senator O'Sullivan has pointed out, and the grotesque nature of it, and we note that some of our international colleagues have also outlawed it, but the reality that you are dealing with a human right here. And the trite response that a woman should be able to do with her own body what she wants ignores the fact that this is dealing with late-term abortions. It is where you've known you're pregnant for 34 or 35 weeks and you decide you're going to have a termination. I don't know anybody who really thinks that's a credible argument, but maybe you can put that forward.</p><p>The second point about this motion that I think is really important is the horror of gender-specific abortion. People are choosing to terminate their pregnancy based on the gender of the child that is in the womb. We saw that just on the weekend. To those on the Left of the political spectrum, those who support the transgender movement: you should be horrified, because it undermines every single one of your arguments. How do you know, just because of the genitalia of the child, what they're going to identify with later on? That is essentially what your argument is. Yet you're going to defend the right of a parent to choose to terminate their pregnancy and kill a child—an unborn baby—because it is a boy or because it is a girl. I find that horrific.</p><p>This is not in effect about the merits of abortion or otherwise. There are many people who would defend the right of a woman to have a termination, particularly early in pregnancy. But please outline the justification based simply on the genitalia, or how you can justify a partial-birth abortion—a late-term abortion where we can see the child. It is fully formed. It is kicking. This is when parents are celebrating that this child is there and it's wonderful and a new life is going to be brought into the world. How can anyone justify the killing of a baby at that point?</p><p>We know there are extremists out there, people like co-Greens-founder Peter Singer, who say that a child is not a sentient being even after it's born. He's happy for you to take its life then—even after it's born. Where do we draw the limit? At what point do we accept that a child can live outside of the womb and is a human life? For me, it would be different to where many other people would draw the line. But there has to be a point where we accept that this is murder of a child. It is murder of an unborn baby that could exist outside of the womb, and it shouldn't be done on what I would say is the simple demand, or the selfish demand, of an individual involved.</p><p>I support this suspension of standing orders because I think we should be able to have a conversation about the horrors of what we're discussing now. We need to be able to bell the cat on this because too many people who just say it's the woman's choice are ignoring the realities of what actually takes place. So I'm standing with Senator O'Sullivan on this. I know I stand with millions of people around Australia who find this grotesque and horrible. We shouldn't be supporting state governments advancing the cause of gender-specific late-term abortions, because it undermines our very humanity and the dignity of every individual.</p> <p class="speaker">Sue Lines</p><p>Senator Stoker.</p> <p class="speaker">Amanda Stoker</p><p>Thank you, Madam Deputy President—</p> <p class="speaker">Sue Lines</p><p>Senator Stoker, please resume your seat. Senator Whish-Wilson.</p> <p class="speaker">Peter Whish-Wilson</p><p>Deputy President, on a point of order, Senator Rice was on her feet two or three seconds before Senator Stoker. Three times now she's tried to stand up.</p> <p class="speaker">Sue Lines</p><p>Thank you, Senator Whish-Wilson. There are a range of people who wish to speak in this debate, and I saw that Senator Stoker had the call. Senator Macdonald, did you wish—</p> <p class="speaker">Ian Macdonald</p><p>On the point of order, I was going to say that I was on my feet before Senator Rice, if that is in any way relevant.</p> <p class="speaker">Sue Lines</p><p>Thank you, Senator Macdonald. Senator Stoker, please continue.</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>
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