Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

I move, as an amendment to the motion:

That all words in paragraph (1) after "immediately" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"with the time limit for the first Opposition speaker being 10 minutes, and the time limit for all other Members speaking being five minutes".

I indicate the opposition's position in relation to this contingent notice of motion, this suspension of standing orders. The opposition's position is that we will be voting against this suspension of standing orders, although we have moved this amendment against the outcome that, despite the position we take, the government uses its numbers to get the suspension through.

I want to take a moment to explain to the House why the opposition is opposing this suspension of standing orders. I want to be absolutely clear: this is not because the opposition is not absolutely firmly and passionately committed to every necessary act to keep Australians safe and to protect our borders.

This is an absolutely core priority of the opposition, of the coalition, of the Liberal Party and the National Party, and this has been our relentless focus over many years—the Howard government years and of course the years that we were in government from 2013 to 2022, under successive prime ministers. There is no greater commitment that the opposition has to keeping Australians safe and to ensuring that our borders are protected.

So, the issue here is not whether the opposition is prepared to engage, in good faith, with the government on the bill that was introduced by the minister at the table just around 2½ hours ago and about which the opposition was first provided with a briefing at 8 am this morning. The issue is not whether we are prepared to engage in good faith. Of course we are prepared to engage in good faith, and you need only look at the way that we engaged on these issues in the last sitting week, where we facilitated the passage of a bill through the House and the Senate which then came back to the House. Indeed, we did more than facilitate it; we greatly strengthened it, because it was a pretty desperate and inadequate job that was done by the government, after telling us for several days after the release of what was initially, I think, 81 dangerous criminals—and the number went up every day, every day—throughout that last sitting week, 'Oh well, nothing we can do; legislation is not an option.'

When the government changed its position, on the Wednesday of the last sitting week, and it got to work on some legislation—it's just bizarre that it hadn't been a contingency plan, but they got to work on it that night, it would seem, and public servants were forced to work through the night—the opposition was briefed the next morning, and we moved very quickly. We did more than facilitate; we greatly improved. That is because of the deep experience of the Leader of the Opposition—an experienced and effective Minister for Home Affairs as well as a defence minister—and of other senior coalition figures, including, I might say, the member for Wannon, a distinguished and senior although youthful-looking senior coalition parliamentarian. The experience with these issues from this side of the House was absolutely critical in engaging constructively and improving that legislation.

So, it is not a question of being prepared to engage constructively. We are engaging constructively. That engagement is occurring, between the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister and between the shadow minister for immigration, the shadow minister for home affairs and the shadow Attorney-General and their opposite numbers. That engagement is occurring. We simply say that the particular sequencing and timing that is occurring now is something that could have been done on a cooperative basis. We will work quickly and efficiently. But the processes and procedures of this House are there for a very good reason. This House needs to be able to engage in scrutiny. We've demonstrated that we can do that quickly. Of course we stand ready to do that quickly. But there needs to be mutual respect and constructive mutual engagement.

So let me be very clear. The issue is not whether this opposition stands ready to work very quickly in the interests of the Australian people to improve deficient legislation put forward by the government, to suggest policy measures that they may not have thought of themselves—and, sadly, that appears to be a bit of a pattern in this area. We stand ready to do all of that. But it is important that there is some proper process and some appropriate respect for the role of the parliament. So, we will be voting against the suspension of standing orders, because this proposes that this debate be truncated to an hour. There are important questions to be worked through here, and the opposition of course stands ready to engage in a constructive process.

Again, I emphasise that that engagement is occurring right now. But what we have not heard from the Leader of the House is any attempt to justify to this House, to explain, why this matter needs to be dealt with in the form of a debate that lasts for an hour.

If it is a question of turning this around quickly, this side of the House, the coalition opposition, has a proven readiness and capability to do that. If that means that we are speaking till late at night or early in the morning, we have shown we are prepared to do that. But what we do question—and we will therefore be voting against it—is the particular nature of this suspension, which crunches down debate to one hour.

This opposition, the Liberal and National parties, stand ready to engage constructively on these very important issues. But there are a range of questions which we naturally need to be satisfied of on the merits of the bill that was shared with the opposition at only eight o'clock this morning and was introduced by the minister at around 20 past one today. There is a series of important and meaningful questions. We are interested to understand, for example, what arrangements are in place to ensure the appropriate powers of state and territory police so that they are able to exercise relevant powers in relation to the cohort of released detainees. The point I make is not to litigate those issues on their merits now, because that would not be appropriate. The point I make is that there is a set of important issues and questions which have become evident to the opposition on the basis of the fairly brief opportunity we have had to this point to examine the legislation which was introduced by the minister at around 1.20 this afternoon and which was first shared with the opposition at around 8 am today. I do make the point that we have had more than a week where the parliament hasn't been sitting, and it is somewhat mystifying why the government felt it was only necessary to share this legislation with the opposition at eight o'clock today.

But, nevertheless, what is most important here is the safety of Australian citizens and protecting Australia's borders. Sadly, the lights are flashing amber, at the very least, in relation to the scale of risk that we face on this front. There may be others with more expertise on this subject matter who would say that is far too generous an assessment. But the point I simply make is that we want to move quickly, but the government has not explained why it needs to crunch the debate down to one hour and why it is not committing to the ordinary scrutiny that would occur. Again, I emphasise that it is not a question of the opposition not being prepared to move rapidly. Of course we are. But we also want to bring to bear our proven expertise and the proven expertise of senior figures on this side of the House. It is for that reason that I have moved the amendment that I have and that, secondly, we will be voting against the suspension of standing orders.

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