Senator ROBERT RAY (10:09 AM) —by leave—In relation to what Senator Brown said, that he wants more time, he may contemplate having the Senate sit on every Friday for general business on a no quorum, no division basis. In other words, the Senate could do nine o'clock in the morning to 3.45 in the afternoon so that we can catch up on committee reports, government papers and whatever other matter you want to discuss. I can exercise the option of staying here and listening to you or going out to Yowani and taking 130 a round. That would be my choice to make if it were no division, no quorum. On the other hand, if it is an interesting topic I would be sitting here sledging Senator Brown as I normally do and enjoying his contribution. That is the sort of breakthrough needed to achieve Senator Brown's desire: that is, devote a full day to it that does not impinge on other government business and that does not require necessarily everyone to be here but enough people to be here.

Senator Brown —But you would have to have a vote on it.

Senator ROBERT RAY —You could always reserve some other time to have votes on legislation and motions. I am not trying to cut out votes in that way. That is the only time I can see that this parliament can devote a large amount of time to general business that you and some of your colleagues would like. I suggest you pursue that.

I am not going to go on and reiterate what Senators Harradine, Faulkner and Ferguson have said here today. I came down to the chamber pretty grumpy with the same ideas. Let me tell you what my solution is. I put everyone on notice, because they will not like it necessarily and people might like to cut it down. The real reason that these formal motions are appearing and being voted on is that the government does not want to declare them not formal and have a contingent notice of motion suspending standing orders that takes not only half an hour for that one but today on at least three motions, 676, 678 and 685, which all would normally have been declared not formal. That means the government would have had to waste possibly an hour and a half debating contingent notices of motion. So my solution to it is for the Procedure Committee to come back and say, `There will be no opportunity for the suspension of standing orders following a motion being declared not formal.' However, that in itself has its dangers; I recognise that. Therefore, I would go on and suggest that we have a matters of public importance type response—that if five or 10 senators standing in their place want that motion to be debated and put they may do so. In other words, the majority and minority would have rights, but on occasions matters would be declared not formal and there would not be a chance to use—I think blackmail is too strong a word—the pressure of suspending standing orders to have it resolved. I do not blame the government for saying: `Look, we've got five motions up today. Let's declare them formal. Let's try to vote them down. If we declare them not formal, we'll lose half an hour.' And every now and then of course you lose four hours because the suspension motion will be carried, and you will just be turning every day into a general business day.

There has to be a solution to it. It will not come from self-discipline or good intentions; it will come from a change to standing orders. I really do suggest that there be no capacity to suspend standing orders or use a contingent notice of motion to suspend standing orders. But then I suggest that a safety net be put around it to make sure that, arbitrarily, one or two rogue elements in the Senate—I am not looking at anyone here, because it could be anyone—could always be declaring motions not formal without a capacity to rectify it. For instance, today we had a couple of motions to extend the time for committee inquiries. A disgruntled senator could easily deny formality to that and the whole chamber then becomes a bit anarchic, if you like, and we do not want that to evolve. Anyway, I have put my view forward. It is not going to be agreed with by everyone, but at least you know where I am coming from on this and what I will be moving on the Procedure Committee. If you have a contrary view, please put it to me and please put it to the Procedure Committee.