Mr BURKE (Watson—Manager of Opposition Business) (00:00): Thank you very much— The SPEAKER: Of opposition business. Mr BURKE: I prefer the first, but that will do. The SPEAKER: I decline to give it to you. Mr BURKE: Who would have thought that after four years of hearing those opposite constantly suspend standing orders so they could talk about carbon pricing they would now bring a motion to this House to suspend standing orders, to shut down debate about pricing carbon, to shut down debate about there being a limit on pollution. That is exactly what the resolution in front of us does. It is not there to manage debate, as the Leader of the House kept referring to—as a debate management motion. It is here to shut down debate. It is here to prevent debate and to gag debate, to make sure that the long list of people who have put their names forward wanting to speak on this debate are denied the chance to do so. There was an interesting claim from the Leader of the House. He said that there are not many names on the list as to how many people want to speak on this. He did not read the final thing that the whips put on there which says, 'More names are available and will be added.' That is the normal practice of the whips. The fact is that what the Leader of the House is saying is that after an entire election campaign where they claimed and their members claimed that they wanted to come into this House and talk about this issue they are going to deny that opportunity, and deny the members on this side the opportunity to even contribute to the debate. Where is the urgency in this? The Prime Minister himself went to business and said he did not believe these bills were about to be carried. The Prime Minister would have an impact. Yet the manager of government business, the Leader of the House, flatly refuses to allow members of this House to even be able to put their views on the record. This is not an ordinary way of managing debate in any way, shape or form. Go through the sorts of ideas that the Leader of the House has put forward—and we respect that he is new to the job—and he has put forward that all non-government amendments will be voted on as one. So if we have a circumstance where there are members of the crossbench who put forward amendments to the same clause that are different to the amendments put forward by the opposition, we will vote on those amendments as one block. We actually have a situation where the government have put forward a resolution where contradictory amendments get voted on together. It is absolutely procedurally impossible for that to be implemented. We have a motion from the person who is meant to lead debate in this House which, if followed through, will create a possibility within this House that we get contradictory amendments to the same bill at the exact same moment. We have had situations previously where debate has been sought to be managed and where it has sought to be managed in the ordinary event it happens which is after there has been a long and protracted debate, not as we have today where it is being gagged after only one person has spoken. We have only had one speech on these bills. We have a circumstance at the moment where the other place is not even meeting yet we have this strange cry for urgency from the Leader of the House. He is wanting to do one thing and one thing only—that is, shut the debate down. But he is doing so in a way that procedurally makes a farce of the entire debate here. How can we have a circumstance where the House is dealing with a resolution which, if carried, says contradictory amendments will be dealt with in the same vote? How do you do that? How do you have a circumstance where the same clause gets amended in two different ways simultaneously? How does the House actually deal with that? I went through Practice and there is no precedent for this because, unsurprisingly, no-one has ever attempted something as absurd as what the Leader of the House has just brought forward. No-one has ever tried to have contradictory amendments dealt with in the same breath. Yet that is how we are meant to deal with this—with crazy urgency on something that the Prime Minister has said is not going to be dealt with until mid next year. There is one reason that the Leader of the House would want to shut down debate and that is the embarrassment of carrying forward an argument that no economists agree with, that no scientists agree with—and I would love to see what was in the Minister for the Environment's incoming government brief—and that they know no sensible advice can say has merit as an argument. And when you are dealt with a circumstance where everywhere you look the policy does not have merit, what is the one option open to you? Shutting down the debate altogether. Shut down the debate, shut down the argument and shut down the opportunity for members of this parliament, including members on each side, who ran this argument and ran it hard during the election campaign, even to put their views on the table. The Leader of the House has already wasted no time in moving the gag, in preventing members from speaking and in preventing— Mr Pyne: It's a debate management motion! Mr BURKE: He says again 'debate management motion'. I wish he could say it with a straight face because the Leader of the House knows exactly what an affront to democratic debate this is! He knows exactly what it means when you put the House in a circumstance where contradictions are meant to be voted on together. He knows exactly what it means when people who spoke about it and told their contituencies that they would have something to say on this issue are going to be denied that exact opportunity here in the parliament. Mr Pyne: They've got all week! Mr BURKE: He says they have all week—how much time has he set aside today for debate on this issue? How much time in the Notice Paper is set aside for debate on this issue? Are there even two hours set aside for debate on this issue today? I think you will find it falls short of even that. And when he says, 'We've got all week,' what that means is that if the next two days are anything like the paucity of time we have set aside today we will see the vast majority of members of parliament not being allowed to put their case on these bills—the vast majority of members of parliament not being allowed to have their voice even heard within the parliament. Now, they have a big majority. They have a lot of members on that side of the House, and the Leader of the House kept referring to it. But there is a reason why they do not want to hear any of them speak. You wonder how many Jaymes Diazes are lurking over there who they want to make sure cannot be heard! You wonder how many members over there will give a first speech and then will be hidden under a rock—the invisibility cloak of the Minister for Immigration gets shared around on members of that side of the House. The SPEAKER: Order! I would remind the Manager of Opposition Business that he is going perilously close to reflecting on members. Mr BURKE: The motion that we have in front of us is a motion that will deny people from even having their case heard, and I do not know what reasons the Leader of the House could have not to want members on his side of the House to be heard. Certainly, members on this side of House want the chance to be able to hold this government to account, want the chance to be able to put our side of the case and want the chance to be able to argue what all the expert advice packs in and what I have very little doubt the incoming government brief that the Minister for the Environment wants to hide—what that might have been able to reflect on. The culture of secrecy which is pervading and which has reached the floor of this parliament is there for one very simple reason, because if you are confident of your arguments you do not need to shut debate down. If you are confident of your arguments you do not need to gag everyone at every chance you get. If you are confident of your arguments then you do not find a circumstance where you get the Leader of the House walking in with a resolution like this. And if you are confident of your arguments and you are running an orderly government you do not end up with a resolution that at its heart has the chaotic concept that contradictory amendments would be voted on together. In the history of this parliament no-one has ever previously floated that contradictory amendments would be voted on at the same moment. This is the first time we have seen it, but it is not the first time we have seen that Leader of the House try to shut down the debate. This parliament should resist— Mr Pyne interjecting— Mr BURKE: You would move that I no longer be heard, probably! This resolution should be rejected, and members of parliament certainly, if there is any meaning to democracy in this chamber, should at the very least be given the opportunity to put their views. The SPEAKER: The question is that the motion be agreed to.