Page 4926 - Week 12 - Tuesday, 25 October 2011

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Amendments agreed to.

MS BURCH (Brindabella—Minister for Community Services, Minister for the Arts, Minister for Multicultural Affairs, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Women and Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Affairs) (4.59): Pursuant to standing order 182A(b), I seek leave to move amendments Nos 19, 21, 28, 40, 47, 51, 53, 55 and 57 together as they are minor and technical in nature.

Leave not granted.

Standing and temporary orders—suspension

That so much of the standing and temporary orders be suspended as would prevent Ms Burch from moving her amendments together.

We have been planning to put this bill through. Those opposite have already said that they accept and support the bill. We have listened for the last 10 minutes to the rhetoric of Mrs Dunne about all of the failings of everybody else around her. She is probably the only person in this place that seems to be above reproach and is error free in her work. I would just ask members here to move on, get on and pass this bill.

MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (5.00): The Canberra Liberals will be opposing the suspension of standing orders. We believe that the use of the standing orders here today is an abuse. This is a piece of legislation that has been on the table for over a year. There has been plenty of opportunity for these amendments to go to the scrutiny of bills committee. We have to seek leave to move them today because they have not been to the scrutiny of bills committee. The scrutiny of bills committee has not looked at these amendments.

In the time that I have been the chair of the scrutiny of bills committee it has been unprecedented for the legal adviser to say to us, “I had such a problem. It took me two hours to work out what was going on with these amendments because I discovered halfway through the process that not all the amendments were here.” For the legal adviser to actually have to ask us to ensure that in future we are provided with a full set of amendments and for me to have to come in here at the request of the committee and make specific comment about that in this place shows that this minister has not got a grasp of her portfolio.

I have had a number of briefings on this matter over the last few weeks. Every time I have had a briefing provided by the minister’s office I have asked—and my staff have followed it up with emails—“Has the scrutiny committee been provided with a list of the following?” In that whole process, members of the scrutiny committee and I got to 11 o’clock yesterday only to discover that the scrutiny committee had not received all the amendments. I said to my staff yesterday, “That will mean, of course, that the

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