The majority voted in favour of a motion to read the bill for a second time.
This means that the majority of Members of Parliament (MPs) agree with the main idea of the bill and will now decide whether to pass it in the House of Representatives, which subsequently occurred without division.(See Open Australia for this vote. )
Background to the bill
The bill was introduced to amend the Commonwealth Inscribed Stock Act 1911 so that the Treasurer is authorised to increase the cap on the face value of Commonwealth Government Securities on issue by $125 billion in special circumstances.(Read more about the bill here, including its explanatory memorandum and bills digest.) Prior to this, there was a debt limit of $75 billion, which had been introduced by the Commonwealth Securities and Investment Legislation Amendment Act 2008.
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