Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I want to clarify the Greens position. I understand that Senator Parry said that we said in the whips meeting that we were not ready, and that is absolutely correct in the sense that we did not agree for this bill to be in the non-controversial time because we think it is an important bill and we have amendments that we wish to move. However, when the parliamentary liaison officer contacted our office this morning and said, ‘If it is not in non-contro, if it is, in fact, being debated in normal government time as a government bill, we will be happy with that.’ We did clarify it with the PLO.

So there are two points. Yes, Senator Parry is right: we said that we did not want it to be in non-controversial legislation. And we did clarify this morning that we were ready. We understood that the government had communicated that to the coalition. Obviously they did not or there was a breakdown in communication or the opposition are now not ready. I just want to clarify that the Greens are ready to debate this bill as a government bill but not as a non-controversial bill. In terms of the extra sitting weeks, I remind the coalition that the Greens put forward a motion to extend the sitting weeks which the coalition did not support. Just remember that: the Greens put in a motion to make sure that the chamber sat enough times to adequately deal with the legislative agenda. That was rejected by both the ALP and the coalition.