Liberal senator James Paterson said Labor’s senate Bill rush could point to a March election

A senior Coalition figure has stoked early election rumours as Labor attempts to push through 36 bills on the last sitting day of the year, with the government going to extraordinary means to ensure it can get through its legislative backlog. While parliament is scheduled to reconvene on February 4 of next year, Liberal senator James Paterson said the government was “clearly clearing the decks to go to an election early”. Should Senator Paterson be correct, and Anthony Albanese calls an election on February 3, this would make way for a March election and bypass a federal budget slated for March 25. Despite an initial failed attempt to guillotine all 36 bills, which will allow the Senate to scrap debate and senators to directly vote on the bills, Labor managed to pass a guillotine motion across 20 bills on its second attempt. While this didn’t involve the critical social media age ban and omnibus migration bill, it’s understood these will be included into the guillotine motion at a later stage, with the government still committed to passing the legislation on Thursday. “The extraordinary guillotine list in the Senate today of (36) bills shows that the Prime Minister has no intention of bringing the parliament back in the new year before the election,” Senator Paterson told reporters in parliament on Thursday. “I am seriously doubtful that the parliament will sit in February because the Prime Minister is clearly clearing the decks to go to an election early. “And the Australian people have to ask themselves, why is the Prime Minister keen to rush off to an election? What is it that he wants to hide?” Senator Paterson said he believed Labor was attempting to avoid having to hand down its budget, with forward estimates forecasting deficits until 2027-28. “What is it about the state of the nation’s finances that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer Jim Chalmers don’t want to be upfront with the Australian people about?” he said. “What’s very clear is the Prime Minister has a plan for his own re-election. “The Prime Minister has a political plan, he does not have a plan for the Australian people.” On the government’s lengthy agenda is its bid to ban social media for teenagers under 16 years of age and its omnibus migration Bill that will allow Australia to pay other countries to accept deportees, both of which will need to be passed on Thursday. As it stands, Labor’s electoral reforms will be delayed to next year after the Coalition put forward last-minute amendments. The government’s manager of business in the senate Katy Gallagher acknowledged the Senate was distracted on Wednesday after Lidia Thorpe threw ripped up pieces of paper in the direction of Pauline Hanson before leaving the chamber and flipping her middle finger at the One Nation leader. The incident resulted in Senator Thorpe being suspended until Thursday. “We tried to deal with it as quickly as possible, but it’s a minority chamber, so we don’t control the time or what happens in that chamber,” she said.