Parliament faces long list of bills in final week

‘; var fr = document.getElementById(adID); setHash(fr, hash); fr.body = body; var doc = getFrameDocument(fr); doc.open(); doc.write(body); setTimeout(function() {closeDoc(getFrameDocument(document.getElementById(adID)))}, 2000); } function renderJIFAdWithInterim(holderID, adID, srcUrl, width, height, hash, bodyAttributes) { setHash(document.getElementById(holderID), hash); document.dcdAdsR.push(adID); document.write(”); } function renderIJAd(holderID, adID, srcUrl, hash) { document.dcdAdsAA.push(holderID); setHash(document.getElementById(holderID), hash); document.write(” + ‘ript’); } function renderJAd(holderID, adID, srcUrl, hash) { document.dcdAdsAA.push(holderID); setHash(document.getElementById(holderID), hash); document.dcdAdsH.push(holderID); document.dcdAdsI.push(adID); document.dcdAdsU.push(srcUrl); } function er_showAd() { var regex = new RegExp(“externalReferrer=(.*?)(; |$)”, “gi”); var value = regex.exec(document.cookie); if (value value.length == 3) { var externalReferrer = value[1]; return (!FD.isInternalReferrer() || ((externalReferrer) (externalReferrer 0))); } return false; } function isHome() { var loc = “” + window.location; loc = loc.replace(“//”, “”); var tokens = loc.split(“/”); if (tokens.length == 1) { return true; } else if (tokens.length == 2) { if (tokens[1].trim().length == 0) { return true; } } return false; } function checkAds(checkStrings) { var cs = checkStrings.split(“,”); for (var i=0;i 0 cAd.innerHTML.indexOf(c)0) { document.dcdAdsAI.push(cAd.hash); cAd.style.display =’none’; } } } if (!ie) { for (var i=0;i 0 doc.body.innerHTML.indexOf(c)0) { document.dcdAdsAI.push(fr.hash); fr.style.display =’none’; } } } } } if (document.dcdAdsAI.length 0 || document.dcdAdsAG.length 0) { var pingServerParams = “i=”; var sep = “”; for (var i=0;i 0) { var pingServerUrl = “/action/pingServerAction?” + document.pingServerAdParams; var xmlHttp = null; try { xmlHttp = new XMLHttpRequest(); } catch(e) { try { xmlHttp = new ActiveXObject(“Microsoft.XMLHttp”); } catch(e) { xmlHttp = null; } } if (xmlHttp != null) { xmlHttp.open( “GET”, pingServerUrl, true); xmlHttp.send( null ); } } } function initAds(log) { for (var i=0;i 0) { doc.removeChild(doc.childNodes[0]); } doc.open(); var newBody = fr.body; if (getCurrentOrd(newBody) != “” ) { newBody = newBody.replace(“;ord=”+getCurrentOrd(newBody), “;ord=” + Math.floor(100000000*Math.random())); } else { newBody = newBody.replace(“;ord=”, “;ord=” + Math.floor(100000000*Math.random())); } doc.write(newBody); document.dcdsAdsToClose.push(fr.id); } } else { var newSrc = fr.src; if (getCurrentOrd(newSrc) != “” ) { newSrc = newSrc.replace(“;ord=”+getCurrentOrd(newSrc), “;ord=” + Math.floor(100000000*Math.random())); } else { newSrc = newSrc.replace(“;ord=”, “;ord=” + Math.floor(100000000*Math.random())); } fr.src = newSrc; } } } if (document.dcdsAdsToClose.length 0) { setTimeout(function() {closeOpenDocuments(document.dcdsAdsToClose)}, 500); } } }; var ie = isIE(); if(ie typeof String.prototype.trim !== ‘function’) { String.prototype.trim = function() { return this.replace(/^s+|s+$/g, ”); }; } document.dcdAdsH = new Array(); document.dcdAdsI = new Array(); document.dcdAdsU = new Array(); document.dcdAdsR = new Array(); document.dcdAdsEH = new Array(); document.dcdAdsE = new Array(); document.dcdAdsEC = new Array(); document.dcdAdsAA = new Array(); document.dcdAdsAI = new Array(); document.dcdAdsAG = new Array(); document.dcdAdsToClose = new Array(); document.igCount = 0; document.tCount = 0; var dcOrd = Math.floor(100000000*Math.random()); document.dcAdsCParams = “”; var savValue = getAdCookie(“sav”); if (savValue != null savValue.length 2) { document.dcAdsCParams = savValue + “;”; }

The Age

National Times

Date

June 24, 2013 – 3:55PM

Judith Ireland

Breaking News Reporter

View more articles from Judith Ireland

Follow Judith on Twitter

Parliament has a long list of bills to consider before the 43rd Parliament wraps up this week.

Parliament has a long list of bills to consider before the 43rd Parliament wraps up this week. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

Federal Parliament faces a backlog of bills as it sits for the final week before the election, with a raft of legislation including the proposed crackdown on 457 visas, school funding reforms and the local government referendum still to pass both houses.

On Monday, to the annoyance of the Coalition, the government moved to gag debate in the Senate to try and deal with the 50-plus bills on its books.

‘‘We are here to get the job done, not waste further time,’’ manager of government business Jacinta Collins told the Senate.

The opposition heavily criticised the move, with opposition leader in the Senate Eric Abetz accusing Labor of working with the Greens to avoid proper scrutiny.

‘‘This is arrogance at its worst,’’ he told reporters in Canberra.

Liberal Senator Mitch Fifield asked whether the Senate saw itself as a ‘‘sausage factory’’ or a house of review.

Greens leader Christine Milne said that while her party supported the move, she had lobbied for extra sitting weeks rather than gagging legislative debate.

Among the bills listed for debate in the Senate are Labor’s school funding reforms, the referendum for the recognition of local government, aged care reforms, Fair Work Act amendments, private health insurance amendments and protections against the discrimination of intersex people.

To deal with these bills, the Senate also extended sitting hours on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday, and an additional sitting has been scheduled for Friday. At this stage there are no plans for the House of Representatives to extend its sitting hours.

As of Monday, the lower house still had 12 pieces of legislation listed for debate. On top of the government’s controversial proposed crackdown on 457 visas, this included superannuation changes, amendments to intellectual property laws and new checks on sports doping.

With AAP

Follow the National Times on Twitter