26th Aug 2014 – Representatives Asset Recycling Fund (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2014 — Consideration of Senate Message — Put the question

The majority voted in favour of a motion "That the question be now put", which was introduced by Parliamentary Secretary Alan Tudge. This motion ended debate on the question by immediately putting it to the House.(See that division here. )

In this case, the question was whether "consideration of the message be made an order of the day for a later hour this day." This "message" was from the Senate and stated that the Senate insisted on the amendments it had made previously to the bill. The House must decide whether to agree to these amendments and therefore pass the bill or reject the amendments, which means the bill will fail.(Read more about the stages that a bill must go through to become law here. )

Background to the bills

The Asset Recycling Fund Bill 2014 and the related Asset Recycling Fund (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2014 were introduced to create the Asset Recycling Fund ('ARF').

The ARF is the fund from which grants to states and territories will be sourced under the Asset Recycling Initiative ('ARI'), which was developed to assist states to privatise assets and to speed up the construction of transport infrastructure in capital cities.(Read the Deputy Prime Minister Warren Truss's comments on the initiative on ABC's PM program here. ) Under the ARI, states and territories will be encouraged to sell assets, including transport infrastructure, and use the proceeds to fund new public infrastructure. By way of encouragement, the Commonwealth will provide a financial contribution of 15 per cent of the asset value of the sale that is used to fund the new infrastructure.(See the bills digest for more information. )

The Council of Australian Governments voted in favour of the ARI on 2 May 2014.(Read more about COAG's decision to agree with the ARI on ABC News here.)