The Senate today united behind a motion moved by the Opposition to hold the Albanese Government to account for delaying tactics they are using to curtail the business of the Senate.
The motion moved by Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator Michaelia Cash, ends a government tactic of voting individually on a series of amendments to orders to produce documents.
Senator Cash’s motion was supported by 40 members of the Senate and only voted against by Government Senators.
“The motion I moved represents the Coalition’s determination to cut through the Government’s fog of delay and get the Senate back to doing what it was elected to do: the business of the nation,’’ Senator Cash said.
“The Government was wasting hours of the Senate’s time on endless votes on amendments that could have been handled in a much more efficient manner,’’ she said.
Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate Jonno Duniam pointed out that in just the latest four sitting days this year, 6.5 hours had been allocated to the Senate voting on futile government amendments that would normally take only a matter of minutes, when over this time, only 8.5 hours had been used on debating actual legislation.
Senator Duniam said, “The Government has spent almost as much time avoiding transparency as passing laws.”
Senator Cash said: “My motion does something very simple. It says: if the Government has amendments to make to these notices, fine – make them. But make them together and put them immediately. Stop stringing this out. Stop using the management of the Notice Paper as a substitute for actual governance.”.
“The Australian people deserve better. And frankly, this Government owes Australians an explanation for how it has chosen to spend its time,’’ Senator Cash said.