Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I appreciate that. May I say at the beginning of my remarks on this dissent motion that usually dissent motions against a Speaker's ruling are moved in the heat of battle, in question time or at other times during the day, because emotions are running high and the opposition disagrees fundamentally with the Speaker's call on a particular matter. On this occasion I move dissent from your ruling not with any sense of anger or outrage but because it is the only mechanism available to the opposition to put on record its disagreement with the stance you, Mr Speaker, have taken on this occasion on an important bill before the House.

As you alluded to in your statement, Mr Speaker, this is not the first time we have debated the issue of appropriation bills—or bills that are not appropriation bills, in the opposition's mind—being before the House and whether the House of Representatives can deal with those bills or is incapable of dealing with those bills. We had this debate over the youth allowance bill that I moved in this House and we had this debate over the bill on the increase in pension, which was moved when Brendan Nelson was the Leader of the Opposition.

This is the first, most comprehensive treatment of this fundamental issue that we have had the opportunity to debate in a calm, considered way. I appreciate the note the clerks have produced. It is an excellent note. It is well researched and well written. I appreciate the spirit in which you have made your statement to the House. I also appreciate the fact that the statement was made in an entirely non-partisan way in an attempt to inform the House of what you, Mr Speaker, believe is in our power and within our capacity to deal with in the House of Representatives. However, we fundamentally disagree with the proposition that the Abolition of the Age Limit on Payment of the Superannuation Guarantee Charge Bill 2011 cannot be proceeded with in this House. We in the opposition believe that, while it is certainly the case that under the Constitution and the standing orders only the executive can present bills to the Governor-General for assent, that does not mean that the House of Representatives cannot deal with any matter it chooses to deal with that it seeks to put before itself. Our view is that the members of the House of Representatives are sovereign in their capacity to address and deal with any matter.

This is a very important debate, because it deals with the relationship between the executive and the Crown, it deals with the relationship between the parliament and the executive and it deals with the relationship between the people and the parliament. It is the opposition's view that the people elect a parliament of 150 members of the House of Representatives and from amongst those members of the parliament an executive is appointed by the Governor-General to advise them on how to govern the nation. The executive has a relationship with the Crown that is quite separate and apart from the parliament. That is in our Constitution and is how our nation has been governed since 1901 and before that in the colonies. The Crown has a particular relationship with the executive which it does not have with the parliament. The opposition has never claimed, and does not claim today, that we as a parliament have the power to direct the Governor-General on how to act or to direct a member of the executive on how to advise the Governor-General. However, we as a parliament do have a right to address and deal with any matter we seek to put before ourselves: we have the capacity to pass it, to amend it, to defeat it or to decide to lay it on the table. But we in the opposition do not believe that the Speaker has the capacity to direct the parliament on whether it can or cannot proceed with a bill.

I particularly appeal to the members of the crossbenches, who over the last nine months have made the capacity of private members in this House their cause celebre. The member for Lyne particularly has spoken on many occasions in this place about the sovereignty of private members and their capacity to represent their constituents. I am sure the member for New England would share those views, as would the member for Denison, the member for O'Connor, the member for Kennedy and the member for Melbourne. Our argument is very simple and our argument is this: that while the executive decides what to advise the Governor-General and which bills should be presented to the Governor-General for assent, it is the parliament which can decide any matter before it and dispose of it.

So we do dissent from your ruling, Mr Speaker. We dissent from your ruling because it is the only mechanism we have before us to get a vote in this House on whether the Abolition of Age Limit on Payment of the Superannuation Guarantee Charge Bill 2011 can proceed. This is a very important debate for our parliament because it goes very much to the whole basis of the Westminster system over many hundreds of years. Our forebears, who established the traditions upon which our parliament is based, would have fought very strongly, very powerfully, for the right of the parliament to consider any matter we choose to put before us.

This is not a light matter. An English civil war was fought over the relationship between the parliament and the people and the Crown and the executive. The English Civil War in the 17th century was not a light matter about a particular king who had a disagreement with a particular group of people led by Oliver Cromwell and many others. It was actually a war over whether the parliament had the capacity to act and its relationship with the Crown. The parliament won that civil war and the relationship between the Crown and the parliament and the executive was established at that time and reaffirmed—

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