25th Jun 2015, 10:32 AM – Senate Migration Amendment (Regional Processing Arrangements) Bill 2015 - First Reading - Procedure

The majority voted in favour of a motion to "exempt this bill from the bills cut-off order". If this motion hadn't been successful, the Senate would have had to wait until the next sitting period in order to consider this bill.

Read more about bills cut-off orders in Odgers’ Australian Senate Practice.

Liberal Senator Mitch Fifield (Vic) explained the Coalition were seeking this:

As I indicated in my contribution on the motion relating to hours, the offshore processing arrangements are central to the government's efforts to protect our borders. We place a very high premium as a government on the protection of our borders. We are seeking exemption from the cut-off in order to enable this legislation to be debated and resolved today. The government is clearly of the view that it is important to that it is important to ensure certainty and a robust legislative basis for offshore processing. In seeking to move exemption from the cut-off, we are not attempting to do anything other than what has frequently been done in this place for bills which are time critical.

Motion text

That a motion to exempt this bill from the bills cut-off order may be moved immediately and have precedence over all other business today until determined.

What does the bill do?

According to its parliamentary website, the bill:

Amends the Migration Act 1958 to provide statutory authority for the Commonwealth to provide assistance to other countries to carry into effect arrangements for the processing and management of unauthorised maritime arrivals who have been taken to regional processing countries, including the expenditure of Commonwealth money on these arrangements.