Senator IAN CAMPBELL (Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer)(3.54 p.m.) —by leave—I move:

(a)   the hours of meeting for today shall be 2.00 p.m.—7.00 p.m., 8.00 p.m.—10.40 p.m.

(b)   the question for the adjournment of the Senate today shall be proposed no later than 10.00 p.m; and

(c)   the routine of business from 8.00 p.m. till 10.00 p.m. shall be the following government business orders of the day:

      No. 3—Superannuation Contributions Tax (Members of Constitutionally Protected Superannuation Funds) Assessment and Collection Bill 1997 and 5 related bills, second reading.

      No. 4—Social Security Legislation Amendment (Parenting and Other Measures) Bill 1997, second reading.

The Senate is the faced with the situation where the government is trying to achieve our desired aim, that is to allow two entire sitting weeks for the debate of the native title amendments commencing on 24 November. On my own estimates, we have about 15 hours of business to complete in about 10 hours of sitting that are scheduled between now and tomorrow night, so we have a slight time budgeting problem. I did seek agreement during question time with non-government senators to allow a little bit of extra time to do some second readings tonight. I thank all senators from the opposition and minor parties, and Independents, who have agreed to effectively give us a net increase of one hour—that is, if I sat down very quickly—in the time available.

The agreement, most importantly, has been made informally. But I wanted to place on the record, so there are no questions asked about the government's intentions here—or anybody else's—that the ministers responsible for those pieces of legislation will not sum up the second reading. If someone, for example, has to be out of the building and cannot speak tonight on the second reading, that will allow them the opportunity to do so before the ministers sum up and therefore close the debate.

Secondly, we have all agreed—because I know a number of senators have made commitments already outside the building—that there will be no divisions and no quorums called between eight and 10 tonight. So the whips will not have to do their normal excellent job of keeping people in the building and available for divisions and quorums. That, I hope, is an explanation of the informal agreement that has been reached and I thank all senators for their cooperation.