Page 596 - Week 02 - Thursday, 14 February 2013
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I went on to say:
If this amendment gets up, we will not be readily granting leave to the government to suspend standing orders because this is unworkable. If the government want to move this amendment to the standing orders, the government must be held to account and the government must live by those rules.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Excuse me, Mr Coe, could you resume your seat for a moment. Stop the clock, please. Mr Coe, I ask you to be directly relevant to the amendments.
Mr Seselja: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, Mr Rattenbury raised these issues and he discussed them at some length. I think it is reasonable that Mr Coe have the opportunity to respond to what Mr Rattenbury said in that context of the debate.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Thank you, Mr Seselja, and he has; he has fully responded. I think we need to get on in the time that he has remaining to talk about the amendments. I would appreciate it if he did.
MR COE: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The amendments which are before us today were brought on on Tuesday in light of standing order 178A. In the debate on 27 November Mr Rattenbury said:
Certainly, in my mind I see this playing out very differently from how Mr Coe just described it. Rather than being about, as he put it, deals in the back room, this will increase transparency. What will happen now is that all members will receive amendments 24 hours before the debate. They will have an opportunity to look at them and consider them and to discuss them with their colleagues, in fact, if they so wish.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Coe, thank you. You have made your point, along with Mr Rattenbury. We will now go on to debate the amendments, not the standing orders. That is not what we are debating; we are debating the amendments. So can we get back to the amendments, please. Thank you.
MR COE: Madam Deputy Speaker, I will continue to address the amendments and the bill and the circumstances in which the bill and the amendments have been presented and developed and consulted upon. That is well within the purview of this bill. It would be an interesting precedent if we in this place were to suddenly say we could not talk about how bills and ideas are put forward in this place.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: Mr Coe, you are declining to get back to the amendments and you want to continue to talk about the standing orders?
MR COE: No, Madam Deputy Speaker. I believe I am talking to the amendments.
MADAM DEPUTY SPEAKER: I have not heard you yet talking to the amendments. I have been listening to you talk about the standing orders and when these
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