Mr BURKE (Watson—Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Minister for the Arts and Leader of the House) (17:25): It's not the most effective afternoon in the House, but here we are. To go through it once again, I'll deal with the procedural issues quickly and then I want to say a bit more about the substance. On the procedural issues: if the opposition wanted to deal with these issues quickly, why did you filibuster this morning? Why? If you actually wanted to deal with these quickly, why did you spend an hour and a half making speeches about when we would debate it? Why? I didn't get to declare the government's position on the amendment, because to declare the government's position—because I was the mover of the motion—would have wound up the debate. I did try to stand up earlier in the debate, and opposition members were still wanting to speak, so I went and sat down, and then they kept going for an hour and a half, and, as a result, that question never got resolved. If you were serious about wanting to deal with this quickly, would you have designed to filibuster and waste as much time as possible, with people giggling about how clever this was? The opposition have treated this like a game all day. That's what they've done. They haven't done their homework—they haven't bothered—with something happening for the first time this term, on a private members' bill coming through like this. I can tell you: if there had been a Greens party bill that had made it through, I can guarantee the Greens party would have been onto the right procedures when it reached the House, if a private member's bill that had been moved by one of their senators had made it through. I know they would have, because I've seen them do it. In opposition, we had occasions where we were in the same situation, and, as I said, Christopher Pyne and I would be jumping to try to see who'd get carriage of it. That's because you want it to be something that you can make sure you give a second reading speech to. You want to be able to do the advocacy. But if there was any sincerity in wanting to deal with these issues quickly, why was there a filibuster this morning? A whole lot of people in the chamber right now were roped into being part of it. I don't know whose decision it was, but it all happened without there being any response by the government, because I didn't want to be in a situation of closing off debate. Was it a game where people thought it would be funny—'Let's see if we can get him to move that the question be put'? Is that what it was? Was this entire thing just a game, as far as the opposition is concerned? This is an issue that they have never cared about. As to this one in particular that's in front of us right now, this hangs off another provision, because this is about discrimination not occurring, and we don't have any examples of this having occurred yet, but it's about making sure that no-one is discriminated against, in relation to family and domestic violence leave being there. Now, paid family and domestic violence leave is only law. The call for it had been around for more than a decade, and we'd started, when we were last in office; we hadn't got there. The call had got really loud during the nine years intervening. Those opposite never moved on it. And now we're meant to believe that suddenly they think these provisions are urgent? It's a tiny area of discrimination that hangs off provisions that they held back their entire time in office. Is that what we're meant to believe? You see, we had a line from the Manager of Opposition Business—and I wrote it down, so it mightn't be quite verbatim, but I think it's pretty close. He said: 'We've seen repeated attempts by the government to prevent these bills from being debated.' The prevention of the bills being debated has been all of his own making, because, if he'd done what the leader of the Greens party had previously done, or if he'd done what I'd tried to do when Christopher Pyne was here, then he would have made sure that the debate could at least occur in the House. But he did none of that. The opposition played, this morning, what can only be described as a game. Then, when given direct instruction from the Speaker about how to make sure that it ended up with debate, they refused to do it and just went to suspensions. That's what they've done. But I think the best evidence—and I don't know who's going to tell Senator Cash what's happened today— Mr Brian Mitchell: She'll take it well! Mr BURKE: Can you let me know what time of day it happens, because I want to be in the corridor! The person who speaks on behalf of Senator Cash on legislation issues is the Manager of Opposition Business, so he spoke. The opposition gets the first speech in response, and they get the half-hour. He used 20 minutes of the half-hour, so he used pretty much all of it. Guess how many references he made to any of the four issues that they're now saying are urgent? Not one! Mr Perrett: Not one! Mr BURKE: Zero! So now they're coming back claiming that this is urgent from their perspective, claiming a passion and goodwill! And, when they were asked to talk about the legislation, they could find 28 minutes and there was not a single reference to any of the provisions that we're talking about now. Not one! It is unparliamentary to use the word 'hypocrite'. It is not an parliamentary to refer to hypocrisy, and we are witnessing hypocrisy on steroids right now. The question then, though, is, why would they want to split the bill? Of course they haven't split the bill, because the bill's still here, and we probably won't get to debate it today because we've wasted all this time. That's probably what will happen. So the net impact of this entire game will be: we'll have a couple of late nights the next couple of nights to get through the speeches because we had all of these suspensions, not because procedurally they were going to get anywhere but because the Manager of Opposition Business felt he needed some cover for the monumental stuff-up that he participated in. So, if you're one of the people who gets rostered on for the 10 pm slot over the next couple of nights, remember this moment, because it's the only reason it's going to happen. If you look at the number of people on the speaking lists and the time that we were planning to set aside for the week, it was all there. For all the talk of 'Will there be a gag motion?' and 'What will happen?', we haven't gagged a vote, we haven't reduced speaking times and we've been making sure that these provisions all get to be discussed and discussed properly. The other issue that comes up—and I respect that the Deputy Manager of Opposition Business has raised this a couple of times—is the issue of amendments, as though somehow it would be a victory for me and why don't I want to get the bill through in the exact form. Senate inquiries can improve legislation. They are often do, particularly on provisions like this. And I might say some of the people in the Senate who voted for these private members' bills are also negotiating with me about amendments to the provisions in the main bill. They don't want them to go through in this form either. Evidence has been brought to the Senate committee on each of these four bills about how some of the different provisions need to be tweaked to have maximum effect. As the Leader of the House, I probably let the House down—I don't knock the Senate as much as most of my predecessors did. I'm more respectful. That might just be because Senator Wong is the leader over there and it's just a smarter course of action. Mr Brian Mitchell: Self preservation! Mr BURKE: But I don't bag the Senate. Maybe it's because I was briefly in an upper house in the state parliament. But the process of an inquiry, particularly on a bill like this—of getting stakeholders to make submissions, of getting cross-party conversation to say what amendments might improve things here and then to get the report and to make amendments as a result—does land you in better legislation. And the Senate inquiry was probably pretty close to ready to report. If you look at their hearing schedule, they may well have been able to report next week. They probably could have. Why will they not? Because the Liberal and National parties voted that they are not allowed to. Even if they are ready to report, they are not allowed to, and they're not allowed to because those opposite changed the rule from 'report by 1 February' to 'must not report before 1 February'. That looks to me like a delaying tactic. It looks like this entire charade is nothing but a delaying tactic for the opposition. I don't have that view of why Senator Lambie has participated in it or why Senator Pocock or Senator Tyrrell have participated in it. But I'll tell you what: it's exactly why Senator Cash was all over it. It's exactly why the Liberal Party and the National Party were suddenly all in on provisions they had never supported and, when they had a chance to debate the bill, provisions they never referenced. What do they want to delay? They want to delay legislation that will close loopholes and make sure people are paid properly. With everything that is happening with cost of living at the moment, that will never be our position. The SPEAKER: The question before the House is that the motion moved by the Manager of Opposition Business be agreed to.