On Thursday 32 Bills passed in the Senate in an abrogation of the chamber’s role of scrutiny – and in an attack on democratic process. Rex Patrick provides a former insider’s perspective on what happened and who has democracy’s blood and follower betrayal on their hands.
Parliament is nothing without procedure. It might be mainly of interest to political junkies, but it’s a critical part of our democracy. Parliament makes laws, and the processes of the Parliament are intended to ensure the democratic, orderly and transparent consideration of those laws. Let’s start with proper process for the passage of a Bill through the Senate.
Step 1: When a Bill is first introduced, along with an explanatory memorandum, it’s “read a first time”. At this point, the Bill can be referred to a Senate Committee for detailed examination; stakeholders and members of the public can have their say via submissions, and senators can ask all sorts of questions of officials and subject matter experts.
Step 2: The next stage is the second reading debate. During this stage, senators can choose to make a 15-minute speech to express their opinions about the Bill. The speech might persuade some senators to change their own views, especially independents. It’s also useful for putting a particular position on the record for later consideration by voters.
The second reading is an important democratic step. At the conclusion of the debate, a vote is taken on the question “that this bill be read a second time“. The Bill can be killed at this stage if the Government doesn’t have support for it.
Step 3: The third reading, or ‘committee stage’, is a Q and A session around the Senate chamber. Senators ask questions of the minister on how the Government intends the Bill will work, and answers can even be used by Courts to later resolve any ambiguity in the law. The committee stage is also where amendments are moved, and senators point out the purpose and benefits of them.
Once the Bill leaves the ‘committee stage’, a vote is taken on the question “that this bill be read a third time” If agreed to, the bill has passed all stages and assuming the House of Representatives is willing to accept any Senate amendments, will go on to become law.
A parliamentary ‘guillotine’
A physical guillotine is an apparatus designed for cutting off a person’s head. A parliamentary guillotine is a procedure designed to cut off debate on a Bill.
The guillotine can be used legitimately for an urgent Bill or if senators are filibustering in debate. It’s not supposed to serve as a way to abrogate scrutiny and prevent advocacy for amendments.
A guillotine can occur with majority approval of the Senate. That’s important because Labor doesn’t have a majority in the Senate; Labor’s guillotine on 32 Bills on Thursday needed support from either the Liberals or the Greens.
The lead-up to this week’s Guillotine
With Prime Minister Albanese desperate to get movement on legislation, a guillotine this week was as predictable as taxes. MMW did exactly this on Tuesday.
To guillotine, or not to guillotine? Labor’s tactical nightmare in last Parliament week
On Wednesday evening, around 7:30 PM, the Government circulated a guillotine motion. At 8:30 PM, independent senator Jacqui Lambie posted on BlueSky, alerting political die-hards that the Government had signalled ‘game on’, saying:
The mother of guillotines – this is not democracy
The dealing commenced.
Senators’ advisors, who were struggling through the end of a long sitting fortnight, went on alert. A furious Lambie was to stand up in the Senate the following morning to rightfully hit out at the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Wong.
“Last night, Minister Wong said all people in this place deserve a safe workplace, and, just an hour later, they sent a guillotine through like that. How is it safe for the employees in my office to go through 41 bills in a matter of about 12 hours? How is that safe? How bloody hypocritical. What about the right to disconnect?”
Morning disruption
Thursday morning would have seen deals being close to settled.
At 9:03 AM, after morning prayers, Lambie stood in the Chamber and sought permission of senators to move a motion to scold the Government for their persistent guillotining of Bills – Labor had already dropped the guillotine blade on no less than 160 Bill thus far in this Parliament and was about to add to that tally. Permission was denied (any single senator can deny permission).
Lambie Motion: Source – Senate.
Lambie then sought to ’suspend standing orders’ to ask the entire Senate if she could move her motion. Debate occurred. The interesting thing was – the Greens sat silently – and when it came to the vote that would allow Lambie to admonish Labor for their excessive guillotines, the Greens voted with the Government to stop her in her tracks.
Greens’ opposition to Guillotines
The Greens have long expressed strident opposition to the use of the guillotine. They understand it chops up democracy.
This was expressed strongly through Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi on 28 October, a month prior.
“The Senate is a place where a huge diversity of political views are heard and it is important that the Senate is facilitated by people who can also represent that plurality. But what we see again and again is a stitch-up between the two major parties, the Liberals and the Labor Party, and we see it again today. This is not the first time it has happened. We talk about democracy here—this is the chamber of review—but again and again democracy is shut down. How many times have we seen, just in the last couple of years, debate being shut down by guillotine motions? …”
So, back to last Thursday, one might have been surprised at what happened next.
At 9:46 AM, Labor’s Senator Gallagher rose to set up a guillotine. And the Greens supported it!
The Government lost the vote 33 (yes) and 34 (no). The business of the Senate would, at least for a short while, take its ordinary course.
If, at first, you don’t succeed…
At 12:20 PM, Wong rose to her feet in the Senate to again seek to set up a guillotine. After 30 minutes of proposals and counterproposals across the chamber, a 30 Bill guillotine was put in place. The vote was won 34 (yes) to 32 (no).
The Greens again supported the guillotine.
But before putting the guillotine motion to the vote, Wong foreshadowed adding two more Bills to the guillotine, one of which was the Online Safety Amendment (Social Media Minimum Age) Bill 2024 – a Bill that the Greens purportedly bitterly opposed.
Further principles abandoned
Wong then acted to include the further two Bills. The Greens knew that the Government, with Coalition support, had the numbers to pass the Social Media Minimum Age Bill but supported it being included in the guillotine.
That was despite the earlier words of Senator Sarah Hanson-Young on the Social Media Minimum Age Bill.
“Firstly, let me say what a disgrace it is that this bill, only tabled in the House of Representatives last Thursday, has been railroaded and rushed through the process here across the parliament.
“It was tabled in the House Thursday, sent to a Senate inquiry that sat for only three hours on Monday. Submissions from stakeholders and interested parties were open for less than 24 hours on Friday—talk about putting out the bins, taking out the rubbish! That’s exactly how this whole bill has been treated by the major parties.
“The reason that this bill is being rushed without scrutiny and without appropriate review is both the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Dutton, and the Prime Minister are worried that if people really knew about what the consequences of this piece of legislation meant, they wouldn’t support it.”
The Government’s deal with the Greens must have been a good one to flush away Hanson-Young’s concerns. And that includes the concern she had express about young and vulnerable children.
They’ll be pushed into the darkest parts of the web and they won’t want to tell their parents what’s going on because they’ll be worried their phone will be taken away, so they will spiral further and further into isolation from their friends, their family, medical experts who may be able to help them, school counsellors and teachers. They’ll become even more isolated and vulnerable.
Too bad, so sad kids!
Air thick with betrayal
Hypocrisy and betrayal were thick in the air. Those watching the Chamber, though, would have seen the Greens opposing the Social Media Minimum Age Bill at the third reading stage – looking like they were fighting the good fight. But the reality was, they passed the Bill the moment they voted for the guillotine. What happened visually after that was just a swindle.
Social Media Minimum Age Bill final vote
For the Greens, as with Labor and the Coalition, commitment to democratic process all too often falls by the wayside as partisan interests prevail.
Rex Patrick is a former Senator for South Australia and earlier a submariner in the armed forces. Best known as an anti-corruption and transparency crusader - www.transparencywarrior.com.au.