The legislation and amendments ensuring the sale of Australia's half-privatized telecommunications provider, Telstra , was moved and debated on September 12. The Liberal / National coalition government has come under criticism for the allotting of time for debate as being insufficient. In Federal Parliament Leader of the House Tony Abbott moved to adjourn debate at 9.06pm, to which his Labor counterpart Julia Gillard attempted to adjourn the Telstra debate until today, but Abbott put the question and used the Government's majority to move debate onward. Abbott then moved that the legislation, comprising of three bills, be considered as urgent and allotted approximately forty-five minutes to debate all three. The Opposition had attempted to further amend the urgency motion which failed due to Government majority — there were six divisions in the space of approximately half an hour, all which failed. Gillard and Dick Adams had called the process "a disgrace", and the amendments (negotiated earlier by Senator Barnaby Joyce ) were termed the "'Backdown Barnaby' bribe" by Stephen Smith before the Deputy Speaker Ian Causley asked him to withdraw.
The legislation and amendments ensuring the sale of Australia's half-privatized telecommunications provider, , was moved and debated on September 12. The / coalition government has come under criticism for the allotting of time for debate as being insufficient. In Federal Parliament Tony Abbott moved to adjourn debate at 9.06pm, to which his counterpart Julia Gillard attempted to adjourn the Telstra debate until today, but Abbott put the question and used the Government's majority to move debate onward. Abbott then moved that the legislation, comprising of three bills, be considered as urgent and allotted approximately forty-five minutes to debate all three. The Opposition had attempted to further amend the urgency motion which failed due to Government majority — there were six in the space of approximately half an hour, all which failed. Gillard and had called the process "a disgrace", and the amendments (negotiated earlier by Senator ) were termed the "'Backdown Barnaby' bribe" by before the Deputy Speaker asked him to withdraw.
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Telstra
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Liberal
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National
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Leader of the House
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Labor
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divisions
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Dick Adams
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Barnaby Joyce
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Stephen Smith
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Ian Causley