Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I second the motion, Mr Deputy Speaker. This dissent motion is necessary in order to restore proper process to this House. You denied the member for Watson the right to move a point of order. Had he been able to move that point of order, the debate might well have progressed such that we would have moved the adjournment of this debate. That was where it was headed: the proper process around these changes that have been sprung on us by the Minister for Social Services—changes that impact on pensioners and which members of parliament are entitled, through proper process, to be able to scrutinise.

What has occurred here is a jackboots approach to democratic processes in this parliament, and it was exacerbated by your decision as the chair, acting as Speaker, to allow a motion that a motion be put to take precedence when most of the people sitting here—everyone, I suspect, except for the Minister for Social Services—has no idea what is actually before the chair. It has a real impact on people. The normal process in the scrutiny of legislation is that you lay it on the table, it is moved and it then gets adjourned so that there can be proper consideration. What this is about is stopping that process—a complete gutting of a bill that is before the parliament, without any ability to provide proper scrutiny of what the implications of this are for pensioners by those opposite, by those on this side and by the Independents such as the member for Indi.

It is entirely inappropriate for a government to come in here and to move such a motion without even the common courtesy of a phone call to the shadow minister, who knows more about social services and providing assistance to the most vulnerable people in our community than anyone else in this parliament. I will say this about our shadow minister: if it is her up against any of you lot about the needs of vulnerable people, I am with Jenny Macklin, the member for Jagajaga. But the member for Jagajaga has not been given the opportunity to scrutinise the amendment that is before the chair and what the implications of it are. Is the minister going to reintroduce the things that he has taken out as a result of this amendment through other legislation? Is there an opportunity for us to go through proper processes? I would be interested in that, perhaps as part of this debate, because this dissent is about whether there is an opportunity to provide proper scrutiny, and what the Deputy Speaker has ruled is not only that you cannot have proper scrutiny but that you cannot even move a point of order to establish a procedural process that would allow for there to be proper scrutiny of this legislation.

Those opposite might have done their deal with the Greens political party, but up until today, up until this motion, we do not know what the details of it are, because the way the Greens political party always function—such as at their conferences, where no-one gets to scrutinise anything—has now infected the government. This is no way to run this sort of legislation. The way that legislation has always operated is for there to be proper scrutiny from all sides of the House in order to assess what the real world implications are, not for people in this chamber but for some of the most vulnerable people in our community.

Part pensioners have a right to know what the implications of this legislation and the amendments that have been moved are. That is why we have moved dissent here, Mr Deputy Speaker: because you chose to shut down the Manager of Opposition Business, who was perfectly in order in making a point of order which would have then led to a procedural resolution that this debate be adjourned. This can all be resolved if the minister will just agree to adjourn the debate. (Time expired)

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