Mr PYNE (Sturt—Manager of Opposition Business) (09:26): The Leader of the House has made a paltry argument for why we should extend sitting hours, but what he has underlined is the government's mishandling of the debate management of the carbon tax bills from start to finish. In their desperation to ram these bills through the House, on Tuesday the parliament passed, at the recommendation of the Leader of the House, a guillotine motion to cut off debate in the next sitting fortnight so that the government could ram these bills through the parliament. At the same time the government established a joint select committee to look into the clean energy legislation, the carbon tax package of bills—19 bills of over 1,000 pages—and has given each member one minute per bill in order to be able to debate the biggest structural change to our economy since Federation. Now the government comes into the House, having applied the gag, and decides to extend sitting hours. Obviously the opposition welcomes the opportunity to debate the carbon tax bills at greater length. Of course we do. We want to scrutinise the carbon tax legislation, but how absurd to be extending sitting hours next Tuesday morning when the committee that has been established by the House is not reporting until 7 October. If the government was genuine about scrutiny, accountability and transparency and if the Greens and the crossbenchers genuinely believed that this government needed to be held to account, that they were interested in honesty, open government and transparency, why on earth would we be extending sitting hours before the inquiry into these bills is handed down on 7 October. Surely, if the government was genuine about transparency and scrutiny they would extend the sitting hours after the committee hands down its report and remove the gag motion they passed on Tuesday in order to give the parliament as much time as we, the elected members, want in order to be able to scrutinise this legislation. Just to underline how rank this government is in terms of its treatment of the parliament and the contempt in which it holds Australian democracy, the consideration-in-detail stage on 19 pieces of legislation, of over 1,000 pages, is three hours. Three hours in two weeks. For three hours the entire parliament will get the opportunity to question the minister about the detail involved in this legislation in 19 separate bills of over 1,000 pages. That does not include the explanatory memorandums to the bills. The government clearly with their alliance partners, the Greens and the crossbenchers, have decided to force through this legislation and, in order to create a fig leaf of respectability and a pretence that they take the parliament seriously, they plan to extend sitting hours by a few hours next Tuesday morning. The most important point to make is that this legislation has no mandate in any event. This is an illegitimate piece of legislation that has not been through an election. The government have never sought a mandate for it. In fact, the very opposite occurred in the last election. They got a non-mandate. Mr Tony Smith: They got a mandate not to introduce it. Mr PYNE: They got a mandate not to introduce a carbon tax, as the member for Casey so rightly says. They received a mandate not to introduce a carbon tax because the Prime Minister promised six days before the election that there would be no carbon tax under any government she led. A few days before the election the Treasurer insisted that the opposition was being ludicrous and that the government would never introduce a carbon tax and the Prime Minister the day before the election said, 'I rule it out,' in answer to a question about whether she would introduce a carbon tax. The government went to the election and received a mandate not to introduce a carbon tax and the Australian people in their goodwill and infinite goodness took them on their word that they would not introduce a carbon tax. Yet here we are in mid-September debating the introduction of a carbon tax. The Australian people have every reason to feel utterly lied to and short-changed by a government that deceived them during the election campaign. The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Ms AE Burke ): The member for Sturt knows— Mr PYNE: I apologise, Madam Deputy Speaker. I withdraw the word 'lied'. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you. Mr PYNE: They were obviously deliberately deceived and the government will receive its punishment in full measure on election day, which will hopefully be sooner rather than later, so that people can get the opportunity to have the vote on a carbon tax that they did not have at the last election. The next election will be a referendum on the carbon tax. I look forward to the election day, which will hopefully be this year or next year and not in 2013, because I do not think the public can tolerate this government much longer. I look forward to giving the public the opportunity in full measure to wreak their punishment on this bad government, which is introducing a carbon tax in spite of the promises it made before the last election. This motion to extend sitting hours to debate the government's broken promise has no legitimacy. They have applied a gag on the debate and yet they have said they need more time to debate it. Just contemplate the illogicality of that position. Apparently they have to gag this debate but they need more time to debate it, so they need to have extra sitting hours to debate it which are not in the schedule in spite of the fact that they are still gagging the debate. Obviously, the opposition welcomes the sitting of the parliament, but let's just take the parliament through this process from the beginning. The government decided to truncate the selection committee process. They trashed parliamentary procedures. They decided not to allow the Selection Committee to refer these bills to the five specialist committees in the House of Representatives that could be looking into each of these pieces of legislation. Instead they established a joint select committee. The only purpose of this joint select committee— Mr Bandt interjecting— Mr PYNE: The only purpose, Member for Melbourne, of the joint select committee is to get around the Selection Committee process and to not refer these bills to the five specialist committees in the House of Representatives. Mr Bandt interjecting— Mr PYNE: Do not worry, Member for Melbourne, you will get your punishment too on election day— The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Sturt! Mr PYNE: You will not have to wait, you will be— The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Sturt! Mr PYNE: If you come back here that will be an amazement. Now that the public have found out about the Greens' policies you will be struggling, do not worry about that. Madam Deputy Speaker, I was responding to the provocation by the member for Melbourne. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Sturt knows— Mr PYNE: The member for Melbourne should be counselled. The DEPUTY SPEAKER: full well that he should not respond to interjections. He is a longstanding member of this place and he should know the rules. Mr PYNE: Some say too long, but the good burghers of the east and the north-eastern suburbs of Adelaide do not think so. The whole purpose of the joint select committee was to get around the Selection Committee process. Then, in the most extraordinary act, the government referred the Leader of the Opposition's wild rivers legislation to a second committee. Not content with having one committee on the wild rivers legislation they then referred the Leader of the Opposition's wild rivers bill to a second committee and yet they would not allow the Selection Committee to refer 19 pieces of legislation on the carbon tax—the most significant change to our economy in 111 years—to the House specialist committees. The proper process of this House, as followed by the Howard government and the Hawke, Keating and Fraser governments before it, is that when legislation of such importance is introduced into the parliament it sits on the table for at least a week. Members of the House get the opportunity to consider it, to study it, to draft their speeches, to seek advice, to do research and to come into the House and give a considered speech. Then, when those speeches begin, if an inquiry is recommended, an inquiry is held and the legislation sits on the table again until the inquiry has met, considered all the evidence put before it and come up with recommendations. As a consequence the parliament gets the best measure of the skills available in this parliament to scrutinise legislation. If I were the government, I would be welcoming the opportunity for someone to go over my work to make sure I do not make all the same mistakes that they have made time and time again in the last four years in their sloppy administration of government programs and legislation. I do not want to be not relevant to the debate, but let us not forget with Building the Education Revolution, home insulation or live cattle exports. How much better it would have been if the parliament had taken the time to get it right the first time rather than wasting taxpayers' money. And here we are again debating rushed legislation as if the government, this group of incompetents, could possibly get 19 pieces of legislation of over 1,000 pages right the first time. That is why this chamber needs to have maximum time to scrutinise legislation. It needs to have five specialist committees investigating these bills. The bills need to sit on the table until those inquiries are completed and then we should have the second reading debate. And then, if we need more time to sit, we should sit. But we should not be gagging this debate. We should not be truncating the selection committee process and we should not be needing extra sitting hours because the government suddenly realises they will need more time for this debate because they gagged the debate in mid-September. I put that to the House. The opposition will not be opposing this motion from the Leader of the House, but the point needs to be made this is an incompetent government mismanaging another suite of legislation. The opposition looks forward to the day when the Australian people get the opportunity to clean this government out and start again with a group of people who know what they are doing. Question agreed to.