Motion: 'Debate be Adjourned: Berwick Sledge Motion ~ One.'

MOTION

‘DEBATE BE ADJOURNED: BERWICK SLEDGE MOTION ~ ONE’.

Thursday, 28 November 2024

Mr NEWBURY (Brighton) (15:11):

The Government is about to misuse this Parliament again. What an outrageous abuse from those Labor Members to use the Parliament’s time again to sledge. That is what this Government wants to do again, to spend another 2 hours of time in this place to sledge and sledge and sledge. The Members on that side of the Chamber should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. We are currently debating a Paramedics Bill, and the Government wants to move to a sledge motion instead of debating that Bill. I look forward to hearing all of the Members on that side of the chamber stand up and explain why a sledge motion is more important than debating the Bill that the House currently is.

What an absolute disgrace this Government is. After yesterday the Government – I mean, did they not embarrass themselves multiple times? Multiple times I went to the Government and said, ‘Please stop. Please stop using this place in this way. Please stop it.’ I went to the Premier and said, ‘Please stop it. Please stop demeaning this place.’ During part of the debate yesterday there were school students in the gallery, so we will now have Members on that side of the place stand up and explain why we should move to a sledge motion over debating a Paramedics Bill. Shame on this Government, shame on this Government, shame on this Government. To think that the Government wants to park the Bill so that it can play its little games – the Government should be ashamed.

What is now clear, what we now know, is that these decisions could only be made if they were approved by the Premier herself. This much Parliamentary time
would not be misused had the Premier not personally approved it, so we know that the Government from the Premier down is saying they want to have an outrageous, vicious, dirty use of this Parliament’s time, so much so that the Speaker yesterday made a number of comments about the debate that was then underway. The Speaker herself made a number of comments about the debate that was underway. I think I felt and hoped that the mistakes the Government made yesterday would be left there, but no. The Government again, from the Premier down, clearly want to get into the mud. We know going into another day of this snarky, nasty dirtiness that only the Premier could approve this. We oppose entirely moving away from this Paramedics Bill to move to a sledge motion. Can you imagine it?

What are the Members on the other side of the place going to justify that decision on? On what grounds could they possibly justify the need to debate that motion over the legislation that was being debated by both sides of the Chamber? In fact, there were Members on both sides of the Chamber who had not yet spoken; the speakers list was not even exhausted. The Government is now saying, ‘Let’s  move away from a Bill that essentially is around paramedics to just waste the Parliament’s time with dirty, nasty sledges.’ Well, the Premier needs to come in and explain it. Why doesn’t the Premier actually stand up and explain why this procedural motion should occur? The  Coalition will be opposing this. We will absolutely be opposing this gutter behaviour from the Labor Party. That is what they do when they are losing – always straight into the gutter. That is what is going to happen, so we will be opposing this motion, and we will do everything we can to call out their behaviour.