Andrew Giles (Scullin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Cities and Urban Infrastructure) Share this | Hansard source

We see here a government so bereft of ideas that it has filled the legislative agenda with one thing: bills designed to rort the next election to their benefit—including this bill, which is designed to silence any critics. I outlined Labor's position on this bill only four hours ago, and since then the government has put before the House 35 amendments. Those are 35 amendments that we have not had the chance to consider. Those are 35 amendments that civil society, those organisations directly affected and those organisations sought to be silenced by this rotten, dysfunctional government, have not had the chance to consider. Who knows what grubby deal animates these amendments? Who knows what substantive effect these amendments are going to have?

All we know is the government isn't very proud of them. Look at the member for Goldstein walking away from the dispatch box. Where's the Special Minister of State, the minister who clearly crafted these and has not given the House the courtesy to sum up the bill nor to speak to these amendments. He's more concerned with dealing with Pauline Hanson's One Nation than dealing with matters on the floor of the House of Representatives as he should. That says just about everything that needs to be said about this government and its agenda. I hope the member for Tangney, the minister, will speak to these amendments and perhaps share his thinking about the effect that they will have on the conduct of an election that could take place at the very start of next year.

All four bills the government has introduced in these sitting weeks will have a significant impact on the conduct of the next election. The most egregious one, of course, is the voter suppression proposal, which we may be debating tomorrow. The voter suppression proposal sees us, if the government gets its way, introduce the very worst aspects of the United States's democracy into Australia. But we can't overlook this bill and its potential effect.

For more than eight years, members of this government have sought to shut down dissenting voices. Indeed, they have sought to shut down any voice that is not unequivocally on their side. That really goes to the heart of what is before us now: a government that won't listen, a government that won't engage and a government that cannot see the national interest beyond its short-term political interest. In my view, on my brief consideration of them, these amendments will make a bad bill worse. It may be that some of these amendments serve some useful purpose. But we, who are about to be asked to vote on all of them, have no basis to make that determination.

We all heard the member for Goldstein. One thing I think we can all agree on about the member for Goldstein is that he generally likes his time at the dispatch box; it took him a long time to get there! How striking was it that he did not take the opportunity to lecture us about freedom? This bill is not about freedom; it's about cracking down on the freedoms enjoyed by Australians who don't have the privilege of being in this place, by Australians who don't have the privilege of being part of a registered political party that takes its place in these processes. Any reasonable view of democracy requires us to ensure that all voices are heard. Indeed, that is something that most Australians are proud of when it comes to our democracy—a system of compulsory voting based also on compulsory enrolment and on making sure that everyone gets their say and that everyone's perspective is brought to this place.

But everyone's perspective, even in this place, cannot be properly applied to these amendments, because Labor and the crossbench have not had the chance to consider them. Labor and the crossbench have not heard any argument in support of them. But we, I think, can be assured in our suspicions of the motivations of members opposite, because there has been a consistent approach here by this government, which won't run on its record at the next election because it has no record to run on. It won't run on a positive vision for Australia because it does not have one. In fact, the government's contempt for the Australian people is summed up in this bill and in the other bills they are putting forward because they know they have no persuasive case to make at the next election. They know they won't be listened to and their only path to victory is to cuddle up to the far Right on the one hand and to deny other voices a chance to speak and, indeed, as we will see later this week, a chance to vote. This is disgraceful legislation. These amendments make it worse. They need to be opposed.

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