The Turnbull government has briefly lost control of the lower house, losing a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives, with the chamber passing a motion calling for asylum seekers on Manus Island to be sent to New Zealand.
The Greens motion, calling on the government to accept New Zealand’s offer to resettle 150 refugees and negotiate conditions similar to the US refugee resettlement agreement, initially passed the house 73 votes to 72 in an upset vote late on Monday afternoon.
The Liberal MP Warren Entsch missed the division because he was being interviewed on television, as did the frontbencher Steve Ciobo, who later told the house he was “unfortunately detained” – an explanation that prompted howls of derision from across the chamber.
The manager of government business, Christopher Pyne, scrambled shortly after the defeat to recommit the vote, ignoring voluble protests from the Labor party.
The manager of opposition business, Tony Burke, declared the vote had been lost because “[government MPs] can’t turn up for work”. Burke said the vote had been entirely anticipated so there could be no valid claims of misadventure requiring a rerun of the vote.
Once the missing MPs returned to the chamber, the government was able to force a rerun and it eventually won the division, successfully seeing off the Greens motion.
The motion, which had passed the Senate, was always going to be a close-run vote, because it had the support of the ALP and all of the lower house crossbenchers, apart from Queensland’s Bob Katter.
As the chamber descended into a procedural skirmish before the vote was recommitted, the journalist Behrouz Boochani, who is one of the refugees on Manus Island, took to Twitter to express hope that Australia could ultimately turn to New Zealand.
If Australia accepts sending people to New Zealand it will be a big step forward for a humane solution. We people in Manus dont want anything from Australia. Just let us go. For a long time we haven’t wanted anything from Australia.#Manus
— Behrouz Boochani (@BehrouzBoochani) December 4, 2017
The Greens lower house MP Adam Bandt also took to Twitter to declare supporters of the men on Manus would keep fighting to try to secure a transfer to New Zealand.
Sadly, after pulling a procedural trick, gov just defeated - by one vote - Parl’s push to get gov to accept the NZ refugee deal. We will keep fighting to stop this gov’s crimes on Manus.
— Adam Bandt 🏳️🌈 (@AdamBandt) December 4, 2017
The people are speaking and their voice is getting louder.
Evacuate Manus now.
The government enters the final sitting week for 2017 vulnerable because it is down two MPs in the lower house. The Liberal John Alexander is fighting to hold his seat of Bennelong at a byelection, and the National Barnaby Joyce prevailed in the New England byelection at the weekend but is not yet back in the chamber.
The lost vote on Monday afternoon followed separate disruption to government business in the Senate, with the government pulling superannuation legislation and reordering business because it lacked the numbers to steer the bill through the chamber.
The government was, however, spared one embarrassment, with a decision by the outspoken Queensland MP George Christensen to backflip on an earlier suggestion he could go against government policy and support amended legislation restoring lost penalty rates.
- The headline for this story was amended on 5 December 2017 to clarify that the vote to accept New Zealand’s refugee offer was later overturned.
