Senator BRANDIS (Queensland—Attorney-General, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (16:13): I seek leave to move a motion to vary the hours of meeting and routine of business for today and tomorrow. Leave not granted. Senator BRANDIS: Pursuant to contingent notice standing in my name, I move: That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter—namely, a motion to provide that a motion relating to the routine of business for today may be moved immediately and determined without amendment or debate. I also move: That the question be now put. The PRESIDENT: The question is that that question now be put. A division having been called and the bells being rung— Senator Wong: Mr President, I wonder whether we could be clear on which motion is before the chair. The PRESIDENT: Senator Brandis sought leave to move a motion to suspend standing orders. Leave was not granted. Senator Brandis then moved a contingent motion to suspend standing orders and at the end of that motion moved that the question be now put. So, the question is now being put— Honourable senators interjecting— Senator Wong: It's a gag. The PRESIDENT: I need silence. I have appointed tellers. When tellers are appointed, senators must assume their seats. If any senator wishes to change to the other side of the chamber, I will suspend the division for the moment, for senators to cross to the other side of the chamber if they wish to. Otherwise, please take your seats. Order! Senator Brandis. Senator BRANDIS: Mr President, I seek leave to withdraw that part of the motion that moves that the question be now put. The PRESIDENT: In that case, Senator Brandis, we then have the ability for other senators to speak to your motion. We will deal with this in a sequential manner. First of all, then, we will cancel the division. Is that the wish of the Senate? Senator BRANDIS: Yes. The PRESIDENT: Secondly, we will now resume from the point, Senator Brandis, where you commenced your speech in relation to the suspension of standing orders. Do you wish to continue your remarks or have you concluded your remarks? Senator BRANDIS: Yes, I will speak briefly. The PRESIDENT: Before we do that, is the Senate comfortable for the debate to continue on the suspension of standing orders? There being no objection, I call Senator Brandis. Senator BRANDIS: I thank the Senate. It is not the government's intention to gag this motion, or any motion, but to move a motion for the orderly consideration of business. I can advise honourable senators that I will in due course move that the Senate consider the Australian Education Amendment Bill 2017 until midnight tonight if the debate has not earlier concluded, and, as well, if the debate continues tomorrow, 22 June, that the Senate adjourn after it has fully considered the bill, so that the Senate will sit either today or tomorrow until such time as debate on the Australian Education Amendment Bill 2017 has been concluded. So this is—let me make this clear—an hours motion, not a gag motion. Honourable senators know that this is a bill of the greatest significance. We know that the Australian Labor Party, disappointingly, have decided to do everything they can to get in the way of the Senate dealing with this bill. However, it is the government's wish, and we hope it is the wish of the crossbench as well, that this legislation be considered this week, before the Senate rises. Every argument that could possibly be heard or rehearsed in relation to the Australian Education Amendment Bill has been heard or will have plenty of opportunity to be heard so that there should be no reason, no reason whatsoever, why the Senate cannot sensibly make a final decision in relation to the passage of the bill before the end of tomorrow, or, if it be the wish of honourable senators, earlier than that. But it is the government's wish, and we hope it will be the wish of colleagues, that the bill be dealt with earlier than that if possible. We understand—and I do not want to have to raise the heat of this debate on a procedural motion—that the Australian Labor Party, having failed to implement the Gonski report, resents the fact, as Kathryn Greiner said on Latelinelast night, that it falls to a Liberal government, a coalition government, to implement the Gonski recommendations. That is what Kathryn Greiner, a member of the Gonski panel, observed in her interview last night. It is a point that Mr David Gonski himself has made. The proposal now before the parliament captures the essence of the Gonski report. This is a rare opportunity for this Senate to break what is a decades-long public policy dispute about school funding so that we can for the first time have a transparent system, a needs based system and a nationally consistent system. I want to use this opportunity to give great credit to my friend and colleague Senator Simon Birmingham, who is on the cusp of achieving what no Australian education minister, coalition or Labor, has ever been able to achieve before: consistency, transparency and fairness in the Commonwealth contribution to schools funding. I want to thank and express the government's appreciation of the members of the Senate crossbench who have been good enough to engage with Senator Birmingham and also with my colleague Senator Cormann, in particular, to hear the government's arguments as to why this is the right way to go to break the deadlock of decades, the anomalies of decades, over the Commonwealth contribution to schools funding. This is an historic debate. The state aid to non-government schools argument has been going in this country for more than 50 years, ever since the Menzies government in 1963 announced that it was going to provide state aid to Catholic schools. With this debate, we are now in the historic position, in the next two days, of concluding that half-century-long dispute.