Labor is disrupting parliament over proposed changes to race-hate speech laws, lashing the federal government for failing to consider the views of indigenous Australians.
Leader of the opposition in the Senate Penny Wong has moved to suspend standing orders in a bid to push debate on the legislation to Thursday instead of Tuesday.
She accused the government of trying to push the legislation through so it could lose quickly and get it off the agenda, given it does not have the numbers to pass the changes.
The government hadn't provided the opposition with amendments on the legislation before debate began on Tuesday, she said.
She said the government had denied indigenous Australians an opportunity to give evidence to an inquiry into the legislation.
"It really does say everything you need to know about this government... when it denies indigenous Australians the right to be heard," she told parliament.
Attorney-General George Brandis accused Senator Wong of playing politics with what had been a "major issue" in public discussion for more than three years.
He said a joint parliamentary committee that looked into freedom of speech in 2016 held nine full days of public hearings, including a hearing in every capital city in Australia before a report was tabled in November.
The government consulted with Australian Human Rights Commission president Gillian Triggs and took up many of her suggested amendments, Senator Brandis said.
"The merits had already been extensively canvassed," he told parliament.
"We are now ready to debate the bill."
Greens leader Richard Di Natale said the proposed changes were about internal coalition politics and Malcolm Turnbull satisfying the right wing of his party.
The Greens thought they had seen the end of the 18C debate when former prime minister Tony Abbott dropped the matter.
"This is like some bad zombie movie, it just keeps coming back and back and back," he told parliament.
The government's proposed changes to the Racial Discrimination Act would swap the words "offend", "insult" and "humiliate" to "harass and intimidate".
Manager of government business in the Senate Mitch Fifield said there was no attempt by the government to curtail debate on the proposed changes, with 20 speakers listed to debate the matter in parliament on Tuesday.
The government would move "purely technical" amendments to the legislation which were the product of discussions with Professor Triggs to satisfy issues she had with the initial draft, he said.
Labor's bid to delay the debate failed after the majority of the crossbench including the Nick Xenophon Team voted with the government.
