Mr LEO McLEAY (11:31 AM) —Madam Deputy Speaker, if I could have your indulgence for a moment to explain the opposition's participation in this debate, I would appreciate it.

Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER (Mrs De-Anne Kelly) —Indulgence is granted.

Mr LEO McLEAY —Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. The opposition will participate in the address-in-reply debate in the Main Committee today under sufferance. We understand that the government intends to complete this debate by Wednesday of next week. This means this debate will go for an hour or so in the Main Committee today and a few hours on Wednesday. There are still 30 opposition speakers who wish to speak. We understand the government has the same number of speakers. We do not believe the address-in-reply debate should be truncated like this. It gives members coming back from an election the chance to comment both on the election process and the government's program for the rest of the term. It is ridiculous, we believe, for the government to suggest that members should take five or 10 minutes in this debate. That is not enough. It will not allow everybody to speak in the debate, even if people truncate their remarks.

The government has not been full and frank with the opposition in this process. We were originally of the understanding that this may have gone over until next year, and that is now not so. We do not think the address-in-reply debate should be completed so quickly. There are no urgent government legislative matters relying upon the address being completed now or early in the next session.

This is the first time the address-in-reply has been sent to the Main Committee; it has normally been conducted in the House. It was our intention initially to consider sending this back to the House today. I do not think that would assist members on either side. We will only agree to the normal sittings of the Main Committee this week and next week. We think the government's original proposal to allow the address to continue next year would have been far more sensible and would have allowed more members to participate.

As I said, we are participating in this debate under sufferance. We think it should be allowed to go over until next year; we think members should have a right to comment on the government's program for the rest of this term.

There are a number of other things that the government has debated and I imagine we will be discussing these things at a later date in the chamber. We will agree to the address-in-reply debate staying in the Main Committee today and we will agree to it being debated in the Main Committee next Wednesday. If the government had run it over until next year, we would probably have agreed to more debate here this week, next week and in the new year. The member for Canberra will participate from our side with other members. The government should be willing to give more consideration not only to the opposition but also to their own members. There are 30 of them and 30 of us. About six or seven people will get to participate. That is not good enough.