I move:
That, from the first day of sitting after the Summer recess, notwithstanding anything contained in Standing Orders in relation to motions other than Government motions, the speech of a Senator proposing such a motion shall not exceed twenty minutes; the Senator proposing, or such other Senator who has not already spoken as he may authorise in that behalf, shall be entitled to ten minutes for a speech in reply; and the speech of any other Senator in the course of the debate shall not exceed ten minutes.
Perhaps I should say a few words about this. The reason that the time allowed has been shortened is not certainly in any effort to stop people from saying all they want to say but to have regard to the fact that three hours is the time allowed for a motion. That means, under the existing system, that if you allow for the proposer, and possibly for an intervention by the Minister, there is probably time for only eight Members of the House to speak. There are many motions coming before the House on which more than eight Members would want to speak. For that reason it is proposed and recommended by the Committee on Procedure and Privileges that the time should be shortened to ten minutes and in that way permit many more Members to speak on a particular motion. It is a provisional change. It can be reviewed in due course, but I think it is worth trying for a while.