Parnell-Bressington filibuster

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The Parnell-Bressington filibuster is a record-breaking filibuster that occurred in the South Australian upper house, the Legislative Council, on 8 May 2008, involving Greens MLC Mark Parnell and No Pokies MLC Ann Bressington.

The South Australian workers compensation scheme known as WorkCover had been suffering an underfunded liability blowout since 2000, and by 2008 was nearing toward $1 billion. Cuts to the scheme were put in place such as payments and the length of time injured workers could access the scheme. Both major parties, the South Australian divisions of the incumbent centre-left Australian Labor Party led by Mike Rann and the opposition centre-right Liberal Party of Australia led by Martin Hamilton-Smith were supportive of the changes, and with eight members each in the 22-member upper house, numbers were not an issue. The cross-bench is made up of two Family First, two No Pokies, one Democrat, and one Green, who all oppose the legislation.

Considering themselves the opposition to this legislation, Parnell spoke for over eight hours, with Bressington speaking for another five hours. Allowing for lunch and dinner breaks, Parnell started at 11am and finished at 11pm. Bressington went from 11pm to 4am straight. Parnell's eight hour contribution alone set a record filibuster in South Australian parliamentary history, and combined, set a record nationally in any Australian parliament. Parnell alone fell short of the record, Albert Gardiner's effort of 12 hours and 40 minutes in the Australian Senate in 1918. The world record is held by US Senator Strom Thurmond in 1957 by filibustering the Civil Rights Act of 1957 for 24 hours and 18 minutes.

Reported to be full at all times, the chamber heard Parnell proceed to read the entire WorkCover Bill, presented his own analysis and then related the submissions from the union movement and stories from injured workers. He described the bill as the most important he had dealt with since entering the parliament at the March 2006 state election.

I planned to speak for a long time. I didn't know how long it would be but in the end I cut it down. Had I gone through all the material that I could have, it would have been twice as long. But I knew I was pushing the boundaries of parliamentary convention. No-one goes for that long, it's not normally regarded as polite.

The filibuster used up the last sitting day, deferring a vote on the bill by one month.