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representatives vote 2018-11-27#5
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2023-06-09 06:45:33
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Title
Business — Days and Hours of Meeting- Business - Days and Hours of Meeting - Additional sittings
Description
<p class="speaker">Christopher Pyne</p><p> ) ( ): I present a chart showing the program of sittings for 2019. Copies of the program have been placed on the table. I ask leave of the House to move that the program be agreed to.</p>-
- The majority voted against adding the words below to the [original motion](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/debates/?id=2018-11-27.109.2) "*That the program of sittings for 2019 be agreed to.*"
- ### Motion text
- > *That the following words be added—*
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- > *"and the following additional meetings of the House are specified:*
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- > *Tuesday, 5 March 2019;*
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- > *Wednesday, 6 March 2019;*
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- > *Thursday, 7 March 2019;*
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- > *Tuesday, 12 March 2019;*
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- > *Wednesday, 13 March 2019; and*
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- > *Thursday, 14 March 2019."*
<p>Leave granted.</p><p>I move:</p><p class="italic">That the program of sittings for 2019 be agreed to.</p><p>Firstly, I'm sure members will be pleased to have the schedule in good time before the end of the year in order to allow them to plan their 2019 arrangements around their work and family commitments. Some of the highlights of the schedule—it's quite unexceptional in terms of the schedule planning—include 17 sitting weeks of the House of Representatives, which would be about the average. In fact, under the former Leader of the House, we sat for 16 weeks in one of the years he put up during the 43rd Parliament.</p> <p class="speaker">Anthony Albanese</p><p>Are you bagging me?</p> <p class="speaker">Christopher Pyne</p><p>That's rubbish; I never would have bagged you! You lost 76 votes in the 43rd Parliament; I'll give you the table.</p><p>Opposition members interjecting—</p><p>There are 17 sitting weeks—I'm being rudely interrupted, Mr Acting Deputy Speaker—which is about the average, and they are evenly spread between the first half of the year and the second half of the year. We will begin sitting again on 12 February, and the budget will be on 2 April, and there will be a normal period of about four or five weeks before the budget, in which time the Treasurer will prepare the first surplus budget since the last coalition government. Obviously, there's an election next year, in 2019, due by midyear. Whoever wins the election—which we hope will be the coalition!—will probably return in the second half of the year with a different sitting schedule, but obviously we are required to put a whole year of proposed parliamentary sittings to the parliament. I commend the sitting schedule to the House.</p> <p class="speaker">Tony Burke</p><p>Can I first of all explain what's in front of us. This year, before the budget, between the houses of parliament, there were five weeks on the sitting schedule before we got to budget week. Last year, there were five weeks of parliamentary sittings before we got to the budget. The year before that, we had—guess how many weeks?—five weeks of sittings before we got to the budget. In 2015—quite an exceptional year—we had five weeks of sittings before we got to the budget. In 2014, we had five weeks. In 2013, we actually had six weeks. In the sitting schedule that has just been tabled before the parliament, there will be a fortnight of sittings before the budget. In that fortnight we don't even sit on one of the Mondays.</p><p>I'm going to quote someone who only last week was described by the Treasurer as a legend:</p><p class="italic">… what strikes me is that a government that does not have an agenda does not need to sit … Unfortunately, the sitting pattern gives away what Australians know about this government, which is that it does not have a plan for the future and it does not have an agenda … Why doesn't it have to sit? There are two reasons. Firstly, it does not have a plan for the future for the Australian people. Secondly, it cannot rely on its numbers in the House to pass legislation to win a procedural vote.</p><p>Be in no doubt: this is a surrender from this government. This is a decision from this government. The last thing they want to do is govern. So they have decided, having already explained pretty much that budget week will be the final week before we go to the polls, that there will be a total of 10 days of parliament sitting before the next election. They've already been in a situation, from the first day that this parliament sat this week, where they had to vote for things that they don't believe in in order to avoid the humiliation of the fact that what began this term, with the Leader of the House boasting about it being a strong working majority, had become a hopeless, dwindling minority. That is all they've become. The Leader of the House knows it and those opposite know it.</p><p>What's in front of us now is the surrender document. They've decided they don't want to risk what democracy might think of this government. They don't want to risk the fact that they have 73 votes on the floor and they don't know whether or not they have a capacity to govern. So, with that in mind, I move the following amendment:</p><p class="italic">That the following words be added—</p><p class="italic">"and the following additional meetings of the House are specified:</p><p class="italic">Tuesday, 5 March 2019;</p><p class="italic">Wednesday, 6 March 2019;</p><p class="italic">Thursday, 7 March 2019;</p><p class="italic">Tuesday, 12 March 2019;</p><p class="italic">Wednesday, 13 March 2019; and</p><p class="italic">Thursday, 14 March 2019."</p><p>By virtue of those extra dates being added to the calendar, we will get two extra sitting weeks. It will still be shorter than it has previously been, because of the budget being early, but it will be four sitting weeks instead of just a fortnight of sittings.</p><p>I know it will hurt the government if parliament has to sit, because the Prime Minister won't be able to have his face on the outside of a bus that he's not inside. He won't be able to do that incredibly fair dinkum, dinky-di, true-blue campaigning that is clearly working so well for him! What will happen is that the legislature will be allowed to legislate. We'll be able to turn up and do our jobs here in the parliament. An additional two weeks of sitting simply brings us into the ordinary parliamentary calendar. I love the way the Leader of the House was explaining how 'none of this was anything unusual'. He said: 'Look, you just put the dividing line between the second half of the year and the first half of the year, packing as many weeks as possible into the second half of the year, when parliament will have been dissolved. Then, bingo, you've suddenly got a first half of the year, because of an election, that will have only sat for three weeks.'</p> <p class="speaker">Luke Howarth</p><p>Except that's not accurate. If you look at it, they're in the first half as well.</p> <p class="speaker">Tony Burke</p><p>The concept of an interjection is meant to be that it helps.</p><p>To the crossbench, because this will come to a vote: we have an attempt by the government to render the crossbench as irrelevant as possible. We have a calculated attempt by the government to try to make sure that they eliminate the risk of a majority forming against them. They know already that it's not going to be a problem for confidence and supply—enough people have given them that guarantee. What the parliament will be able to do, though, is debate issues. What the parliament will be able to do is debate legislation. What the parliament will be able to do is deal with amendments on a series of issues that this government simply want to run and hide from. Take, for example, what they have done with live animal exports. It is legislation that, the moment they thought they might not win on the floor of the parliament, even though we'd been told the penalties legislation was urgent, all of a sudden, when there was a risk of it being amended on the floor, it disappeared, never to be seen again, just existing on the <i>Notice Paper</i> and nowhere else at all. That won't be the only issue where this government are wanting to run and hide. What's in front of us now will be an amendment that will very simply allow next year, because the budget is early, for us sit one week fewer than we ordinarily do. But for anyone to claim that in the period from the beginning of the year to 2 April we can only turn up for a fortnight—</p> <p class="speaker">Sharon Claydon</p><p>It's not even a full fortnight!</p> <p class="speaker">Tony Burke</p><p>It's not even a full fortnight; it's seven days. It's a government running and hiding.</p><p>So I simply put to the House: everyone will have different views on what we do on these additional sitting days, but we should turn up. It's a democratically elected parliament. Our electorates voted for us to be here and to represent them. The fact that the numbers on the floor have become inconvenient for the government doesn't change our democratically elected duty. I commend the amendment. For those people who are the reason that the government is suddenly wanting to hide from the parliament, the outcome of this amendment will rest on their capacity to make the case for their electorates and their capacity to use the fact that we are now in a hung parliament. I commend it to the House.</p> <p class="speaker">Ian Goodenough</p><p>Is the amendment seconded?</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>-
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