Senator MILNE (Tasmania—Leader of the Australian Greens) (16:26): The proposition before the Senate is that we suspend the standing orders so that a matter that Senator Abetz wishes to debate with regard to the local government referendum can be brought on ahead of all other government business. There are a number of bills before this parliament that we need to get through before we leave here for the winter. We were dealing with the EPBC Amendment Bill and dealing with a filibuster that the coalition set up and have to have talked out. They continue to talk it out so that they are not forced to go to a vote. They will eventually be forced to go to the vote, but there has been a filibuster on, so it is an absolute cheek to come in here after setting up a filibuster on one bill and then want everything else suspended to deal with this matter. This matter should be dealt with when we debate the referendum bill, which was on the Notice Paper for today. If we had not had the filibuster on the EPBC Amendment Bill, we would have been onto the local government bill and had this debate in the context of the debate on that referendum bill. The Local Government Association are holding their national conference here in Canberra at the moment. They want this matter taken seriously and they do not want it being played with in a political sense. It is quite obvious from what Senator Brandis has just said that the coalition have no intention of supporting the yes case. All they have agreed is that they will not oppose the question being put. In other words, they will not oppose a referendum being held. Opposition senators interjecting— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Marshall ): Order! Senator MILNE: As I was saying, they will not oppose the question being put, but they have not indicated whether they would support the yes or no case. It is fairly obvious that that is the case. However, that is not the point. The point here is: should we suspend standing orders to debate— Opposition senators interjecting— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order! Senator MILNE: We are here to debate whether Senator Abetz's proposition should take precedence over all other business, when the second item on the Notice Paper for today was the second reading debate on the Constitution Alteration (Local Government), during which he could have raised these matters if the coalition had not set up a filibuster on the EPBC Amendment Bill. That is why we are not going to support this. We will deal with these issues when we get to debate the local government referendum bill, which is the context in which we ought to deal with them. I note with interest the outrage from Senator Brandis that the backroom deal that they had obviously done with the government on this matter has fallen to bits. I wonder if he got a letter that he could perhaps brandish to show how the agreement that was signed was so badly ratted upon, as occurred to the government only a few weeks ago. So I find it fascinating that there is such high dudgeon in relation to breached agreements when that is what happened over the last couple of weeks. The Greens point of view is that we should continue with the bills which were agreed. We should have been onto the local government bills, but we have three other bills to deal with tonight. We shall deal with them and then deal with these matters when we get to the local government referendum bill.