Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Homeland Security) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker Causley, at the outset I would add my best wishes to you in your life after parliament and also acknowledge the very extensive contribution that you have made here in the national parliament and before that in the New South Wales parliament. On a personal level, I have enjoyed the exchanges down at the horseshoe end of the House. Your experience, your wit and your forthright approach to all issues before the parliament are actually appreciated by all of us, even if we might disagree from time to time about the issues at hand. I genuinely wish you well.

The Australian Crime Commission Amendment Bill 2007 has been brought on in great haste. This is not the parliament at its best. This is not the government at its best. We as an opposition were first advised of the government’s desire to bring this matter before the parliament only on Monday night—late on Monday night, I might add. It was then rushed through the Senate the next day, and here we are on what is probably the last day of sitting of the House of Representatives before the election, facilitating its passage here in the Main Committee rather than in the House of Representatives itself.

That should not be taken as any indication that we think this is not important legislation. It is indeed important legislation. We do not take it lightly. Indeed, we have some reservations in respect of certain elements of it. It should not go unnoticed that the government’s handling of this has been poor. It has been rushed. In part, it has been inaccurate. It is yet another demonstration that for some time the government’s focus has not been on the governance of this country; it has been on internal considerations of who said what to whom over lunch some time ago, who should be leader of the Liberal Party now or who in the Liberal Party might be Leader of the Opposition after the next election.

See this speech in context