Senator CARR(12.38 a.m.) —In the short time that is remaining, I think I should state a few basic facts. It is in fact 125 hours and six minutes that this opposition, along with other members of the Senate, agreed to, in terms of extra time for this government to consider their legislative program. If you average it out at three hours per day, it equals 40 extra days of sitting or, if you work on the assumption that the average parliament sits some 80 days, that is, in effect, an extra six months in a parliamentary cycle, an extra 10 weeks of parliamentary time provided to this government for consideration of their program—a program, I emphasise, that is fundamentally different from the program they actually put to the people in the last election.

They went into the election on the basis that they were seeking to secure a mandate for minimal changes. What we saw after that election was a program that actually promised maximum changes—such as in industrial relations, where they said that people were not going to be worse off, or in superannuation, where they said there were going to be no extra taxes. What do we see? We see a program that introduces massive increases in taxation. We see a whole series of areas, such as the ABC, education, industrial relations and telecommunications, where there are fundamental changes in the structure of Australian society.

There have been 125 hours extra time for you to pursue your agenda. The problem has not been Senate obstruction; it has been mismanagement. What I indicated to you, Senator Campbell, was very simply that, if there was a reasonable hope that we would get the super bill at 12 o'clock, we would extend the time. There are four hours extra to go and you know there was no hope of getting it. (Time expired) .