Senator BROWN (6:22 PM) —As the Manager of Government Business in the Senate will know, I oppose this motion. I do not believe that the Senate should be sitting extended hours at this time of its proceedings. I do not agree with these extended sittings because of the political nature of the reasons underlying them; that is, the need for the government to pass legislation, including legislation which is not of an urgent nature. Besides the no doubt long debate that there will be over the GST package and the attendant diesel fuel levy rebate package, which is designed of course to give a massive hand-out to supporters of the government, there is going to be debate on a number of other pieces of legislation which in no way can be seen as urgent.

One of those is one of the most significant pieces of legislation that I will see in my period in this Senate. Other senators may disagree with that because they do not count the environment as being a matter of importance, but I do—and I have the support of greens right around this country when I say that. Among the two pieces of legislation which the government has listed here is a bill to change the whole nature of the administration of environmental law in this country. This bill, which purports to bring up to date—after 20 years of serial environmental change—the laws of this country, is effectively a handover of government powers over the environment to the states and the territories. The salient matter here is that this legislation is not important, it is not urgent, it is not pressing and it does not have to be pushed through the Senate under this sort of change to the ordinary Senate hours. I would ask all other senators, including those on the government benches, to consider this matter. The urgency is not there.

It may well be that the Democrats and the government have struck a secret deal on this legislation—and if so, be that on their heads—but I am not going to be party to allowing an extra day's sitting between now and next Wednesday before the next elected Senate comes in to deal with such matters. I have heard no reason from the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, the Prime Minister or anybody else in government as to why we should be sitting extended hours to push through that sort of legislation. It is going to need—and ought to properly have—extensive review by the public before this Senate debates it. It is not going to get that. I will tell you why it is not going to get it, even though this legislation is there as a priority by the government: because the public does not know what the deal is. No-one out there knows what the secret arrangements between the Democrats and the government are. We do have the legislation, as brought into this parliament, before us but we also know that is not what we are going to be dealing with, that there have been extended and lengthy negotiations between the government and the Democrats on this matter.

Nobody has told me, for example, as a representative of green voters for the Australian Greens, what the details are of this amended document. The government is saying, `Well, we're not going to tell you'—and the Democrats are saying, `We're not going to tell you'—`but we are going to bring this bill in as early as tomorrow and you're going to have to deal with it.' Well, I am not going to be party to that sort of ramrodding and railroading of extremely important legislation through this place, because I hold it in higher regard than that. I hold the national environment in higher regard than that and I hold the importance of being able to inform an electorate before we deal with legislation like that in high regard, so I am not going to support this motion. I am not going to be party to changing the hours to allow that sort of legislative railroading to occur in this place. If there were decency in this process, if an obligation were felt by the government and the Democrats to allow millions of Australians—who will feel, when they get to know about it, that this legislation is important—to understand it, to discuss it and to have feedback on it, we would not be having this process.

Besides that legislation there is the regional forest agreements legislation which is part of this environmental fix, which gives us an indication of the direction that this is taking. What has happened there is that the national government has signed agreements with several state governments to absolve itself of all responsibility as far as the environment is concerned and to lock into place for 20 years the destruction of forests and wildlife around this country, regardless of what the environment so-called protection bill does. That is what we are dealing with here, but the public out there are not aware of the ramifications of that. What the government is saying to me is that we are going to have to accept its dictates and, no matter how important and fundamental this issue is to our constituents, become part and parcel—by amending the hours—of allowing this legislation to be put through.

I will not stand for that. I am not going to be party to that. If the Democrats want to be, let them be. If the Democrats, at the end of this tawdry process, are going to be part of guillotining these pieces of legislation to prevent their proper debate, let that be on their heads as well. But I am not going to go along compliantly with a process which has that end result, because these matters are too important. The government ought to recognise that as far as I am concerned, as an Australian Green standing here, these are top priority matters which cannot be dealt with in a cavalier fashion. Let the government go out and explain to the electorate why it is doing this.

Senator Ian Campbell —You explain to Dee about the party on Wednesday night.

Senator BROWN —The minister opposite says to me, `Well, I'll threaten you'—

Debate interrupted.

Sitting suspended from 6.30 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.