Labor and the Greens tonight demonstrated their disdain for the Parliament, the Tasmanian public and public servants who face a pay freeze in order to save jobs.
All week the Opposition parties talked about stunts and parliamentary standards, but tonight it was their own behaviour and attempted stunt that took the cake.
After spending hours trying to amend the question before the chair, followed by 90 minutes arguing whether the short title of the Bill should be amended, the Green’s then tried to further delay debate on the legislation by attempting to call on a no-confidence motion.
Their spurious argument was that the name of the Crown Employees (Salaries) Bill was somehow misleading.
Earlier this week Opposition Leader Bryan Green promised not to filibuster debate, and in light of this, the Government was prepared to facilitate sensible debate on this important Bill for as long as necessary.
However, given Labor and the Greens’ antics tonight and their clear demonstration that they had no intent to actually scrutinise the Bill, we had no option but to limit time for the remaining debate in order that it be debated in the Legislative Council next week.
At the conclusion of the debate the Bill will have been scrutinised for just over 14 hours in the House of Assembly, which is longer even the debate for the Pulp Mill Assessment Act (2007).
