Page 3043 - Week 08 - Thursday, 25 June 2009
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Appropriation Bill 2009-2010
[Cognate paper:
Estimates 2009-2010—Select Committee report—government response]
Declaration of urgency
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Water, Minister for Energy and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (7:45): On behalf of the Treasurer, I move:
That this bill be declared an urgent bill.
The Appropriation Bill 2009-2010 is an urgent bill. It does need to be passed before the Assembly rises at the end of this sitting day. To date we have had just over nine hours of debate on the appropriation bill and we have dealt with five line items. At that rate, this debate will conclude probably some time on Saturday afternoon.
So the government believes it is necessary to proceed to declare this bill urgent. I have circulated to members a schedule which will be dealt with should my declaration of urgency be accepted; that outlines the time periods that the government is proposing be allocated to the remainder of the bill. You will note that the government is proposing that there be 40 minutes of debate on each of the large departmental appropriations and 15 minutes of debate on the smaller agencies and other elements of the appropriation bill. The government does not intend to speak in relation to the smaller agencies, to ensure that there are at least two non-government speakers on those matters.
Madam Deputy Speaker, it is time that we placed some discipline on the timings of debate on this bill. That is why I am proposing the urgency declaration. If the Assembly agrees to this, we will still have at least 17 hours of debate on the budget, which I think is sufficient time for members to get their points across.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (7:47): We will not be supporting this motion. First and foremost, it is a return to the view of the Labor Party in this place that they can treat the Assembly as if they were still in majority. I understand that the Greens will be supporting this.
Ms Gallagher: That weakens your argument just a little bit.
MR SESELJA: If I could have the opportunity to talk to that.
Mr Hargreaves: Right—like you give everybody else an opportunity.
MR SESELJA: Madam Deputy Speaker, we have a situation where this was simply presented to us this evening at some point. There was no negotiation; we were presented with this. It is the Greens and Labor acting as the Labor Party used to act when it was a majority government in its own right.
We have had a situation where I do not know how many questions on notice were presented this afternoon, but it looked like a lot.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .