Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

He is not that tall, so he might not be blocking the camera that badly, but it is a bit over the top. It is an insane proposition, a ridiculous situation, that what we have right now in this parliament is the House of Representatives voting to ignore the deliberations of a joint committee—the same joint committee that every one of their speakers relied on to make their case. This is not the same bill as had previously been considered by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. The government are about to want to move amendments to this bill. So we have a situation where the government have realised the bill as it was introduced was in an inadequate form, they want to move amendments, they have referred it to a joint committee because of the nature of the information that is being dealt with, and in the face of all of that they then say, 'But let's ignore the joint committee and just vote now anyway, because we're going to steamroll it through.' What on earth is the point of the Leader of the House standing up at the end of question time and moving resolutions on who will be appointed to different committees if the committee system of this parliament is to be rendered completely irrelevant?

Standing order 148 is there for a very clear and precise reason. In the ordinary running of this parliament, time after time a minister will stand at that dispatch box and will ask, 'Is leave granted to proceed to the third reading forthwith?' and whoever is at the table here, in the ordinary course of events, will stand up and grant leave. But the government ordinarily does not even ask that when you have a situation where a committee is yet to report.

It was only referred to the committee to Monday. By Wednesday, they are saying it is time to ignore that reference. We have a situation where the Senate will have the benefit, I presume, of being able to consider the findings of the committee but the House of Representatives is being told right now, by resolution moved by the government, that if you are member of a committee then the work you are doing is considered irrelevant by the executive of this government. If you are one of the backbenchers turning up to hearings, thinking that you have a relevant role in the running of this government, you are being told right now that the captain's call is all that will matter. Those on the backbench: if you thought there was some situation happening now where somehow the people who sit in the front row of your side of this House have any respect for the roles of the people who sit behind them, this resolution says, 'Nope, no respect for your participation in committees and no respect for any of the issues.'

What we have actually had is that the government has wanted to go through the charade. The Treasurer, who I am surprised is confident enough to be in the parliament at all after the week he has had, moved the resolution that it be referred to the committee, because that was the right thing to do, because that was due process. Of all the issues that we deal with, for the one that they decide they will steamroll over the top of to be electoral reform is just breathtaking. It is breathtaking in its arrogance and extraordinary in the outcomes that we are seeing now.

It was the Leader of the House—before he became Leader of the House, when he had my job—who said to the Institute of Public Affairs, 'The Australian people expect parliament to consider all items diligently.' Well, that is not what this House is being asked to do. The House is being asked right now to not consider its own committee report at all and to roll this through in the urgency of a government that has no respect for its own backbench. But I think the backbench in the last few weeks have been working out how little respect there is for them from the people who sit in the front row. I think the backbench members who participate on committees are getting a pretty clear idea that, if they thought the days of captain's calls were over, they are now seeing more of them than they ever did under the predecessor. The captain's calls are alive and well—the arrogance and the commitment to ignore any other view in the room. The view that whoever is sitting in the front row is the smartest person in the room and the rest of the place does not matter is exactly what is happening right now in this parliament.

It is an extraordinary action from the government to decide to ignore the committee that received this bill by resolution—unanimous resolution—of this parliament on Monday. Why on earth did the Treasurer bother referring it to a joint committee if he has already decided that the only chamber that is going to matter is where they have done the deal with the Greens to steamroll this through the Senate? If that is the only house they care about then they say to every person elected to this House, which is meant to be the house of government, that the procedures here are of no consequence at all.

So I urge every member of this House to not be like lemmings, as some of those opposite may be told that they are meant to do by their party whip and by their leader, and to not simply have a situation where you go off to committees but it really does not matter what you do, it really does not matter how much work you put in and it really does not matter what findings you end up with. In this House, we should at the very least, if we unanimously refer an issue to a committee, wait for the committee to report before we vote.

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