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

I move:

That the message from the Senate be considered immediately.

I will explain to the House what is at stake here. Members of the House might recollect that approximately two weeks ago four bills were passed by the Senate. Those bills were the subject of a message which came to this House requesting that the House then deal with those bills. Indeed, on the document circulated by the Leader of the House—the blue—it was set out that the government intended to move that all of them be made an order of the day for the next sitting, with the result that they would have ended up on the Notice Paper.

That would have been the ordinary process. That would have been the ordinary thing that would have happened, consistent with the appropriate sharing of responsibilities between the two houses of the Australian parliament.

But that did not happen, because we saw from the Leader of the House a concerted attempt to drive those four bills into limbo so that they'd never be considered again. We saw the ludicrous spectacle, in respect of at least a couple of those bills, of the Leader of the House engaging in a go-slow. He sat on his hands and refused to stand and move that the message be dealt with or that the bills be made an order of the day. This of course is a very serious matter, because it means that in effect the House, under this government, is essentially thumbing its nose at the Senate. It's effectively saying to the Senate, 'Well, you may have passed four bills, but we're going to do nothing about it.'

We heard a series of convoluted excuses from the Leader of the House as to why this occurred—liberal attempts to share the blame and allocate responsibility to everybody except himself. But the consequence of the course of action settled upon by the Leader of the House and by the government is that the four bills that passed the Senate are not on the Notice Paper in this House of Representatives and have effectively fallen off the edge of the Earth as far as this government is concerned.

This raises very serious questions about the relationship between the two houses in our parliament. There is a set of arrangements under which bills move back and forth between the two houses so that legislation can be appropriately dealt with on behalf of the people of Australia. The Leader of the House is hopelessly conflicted on this issue, because in addition to his position as Leader of the House he is also the minister with responsibility for carriage of what is laughably described as the 'closing loopholes' bill—which might be better described as 'extraordinary expansion of the rights and powers of unions' bill. Because of that, he is personally violently opposed to the legislative strategy that had been arrived at by the Senate and particularly under the leadership of Senators Pocock and Lambie. And I do want to acknowledge their leadership, because those two senators took a view as to how the interests of the Australian people and the interests of working people would be served regarding the four matters that were contained within the broader multi-hundred-page 'closing loopholes' bill that was introduced into the parliament by the minister—which contains, as it does, many matters that are incredibly contentious and are, in the view of objective commentators such as economists, business people and others, calculated to damage Australia's productivity, to mount a sustained attack on the whole notion of casual employment, to put millions of Australians in the position that the choice they've made to work as casuals and therefore receive a very significant loading and, in exchange for that, not have some of the other rights that attach to full-time work is under threat. That is all under threat because of this minister's extraordinary legislative ambition. I suggest to the House that there has also been an approach to this matter by the Leader of the House that is motivated by a desire to do whatever he can to prevent any threat to his bill's being considered in the way that he wants it to be considered.

The strategy that was arrived at by Senators Lambie and Pocock and which was supported by a majority of senators in the other place was to say, 'Let us, in the interests of the Australian people and in the interests of working people, identify matters within this multi-hundred-page bill brought forward by the minister which are not contentious, matters which are supported by all sides in this parliament.'

Based upon that strategy, the two senators introduced private senators' bills—which were supported by a majority of senators—dealing with such matters as a rebuttable presumption that post-traumatic stress disorder suffered by selected first responders was contributed to by their employment. That was the first matter that was the subject of one of those bills. The next matter was measures to ensure that employees do not miss out on redundancy payments merely because their employer became a small business as a result of an insolvency procedure. The third matter dealt with the operation of antidiscrimination laws and adding to protect attributes of the discrimination-in-employment experience of family and domestic violence. The fourth matter was to expand the functions of the Asbestos Safety and Eradication Agency. The two senators introduced four private senators' bills, addressing in turn each of those four issues. Those bills were passed by the Senate. A message then came, in the ordinary way, from the Senate to the House, requesting that the House deal with these bills.

The House has failed to deal with these bills. They're not on the Notice Paper. They appear to have disappeared. It is not at all surprising that the Senate is deeply troubled by that. That is the genesis of the request that has now arrived in the form of a message from the Senate to the House, requesting a conference. This is a procedure that is contemplated in the standing orders. It's not been used very often at all, but a majority of senators have arrived at the view and passed a motion today to the effect that, given the extraordinary lack of engagement by this parliament, by this chamber under the leadership of the Leader of the House, with the four messages that came from the Senate a couple of weeks ago asking the House to engage in relation to those four bills, there ought now be, as a next step, a conference held between the House and the Senate so that the status of these four bills can be agreed and so that a constructive way forward can be found.

Again I make the point that the underlying objective that the Senate—or that majority of senators that passed this motion—is seeking to achieve is in the interests of the Australian people, in the interests of working people, to be able to move forward in an expeditious fashion, reaching agreement in relation to those four matters which have already been passed by the Senate and in the ordinary course would have been dealt with by this House. But we saw the extraordinary spectacle a couple of weeks ago with the Leader of the House essentially refusing to engage, even though, on the blue circulated that day, it was documented that it was the government's intention to move that each of these bills be made an order of the day for the next sitting. Despite that being the intention of the Leader of the House at the time that that document was finalised and circulated to all members, at some point a few hours later he refused to do that.

Since then there has been a matter of complete inaction on the part of this government as to what it intends to do in relation to those four bills. They're essentially doing nothing. It's a go-slow in the traditions of the union movement, who are, of course, the paymasters of the Labor Party.

The Senate is simply saying to the House, it would seem, with this request: 'Let's sit down and sensibly work out what we'll do next. Let us use the procedures in the standing orders for a conference between the House and the Senate so that this matter can be addressed.' That would be instead of the ludicrous position being maintained by the government—that these bills have somehow disappeared, that these bills are not on the Notice Paper. We will hear all kinds of excuses, I have no doubt. I confidently predict we will hear all kinds of excuses from the Leader of the House as to why we are unable to deal with this matter. But, on this side of the House, what we say is that we ought to engage constructively. We stand prepared to engage constructively. I call on the crossbench and, indeed, I call on the government, quite frankly, to engage constructively. We have an opportunity to move with alacrity to get these matters dealt with. The Senate already provided an opportunity a couple of weeks ago. The government refused to engage. We will hear all kinds of technical arguments as to why. We'll hear that it's beyond the control of the Leader of the House. It is nonsense. Clearly if there was the will this matter could be resolved very quickly.

The fact that the Senate has found it necessary to request this conference is, I think, an indicator of the seriousness of what has occurred here and the seriousness of the fact that the government and the Leader of the House have chosen to play games and to essentially refuse to engage with bills which have passed the Senate and which have been the subject of a message from the Senate. There are well-established protocols as to how this is dealt with. Right now, the government is simply folding its arms and saying: 'We're not going to deal with it. We're not going to do anything.' That is completely inappropriate. It is completely inconsistent with the framework of mutual respect that must operate between the two houses if the parliament is to do its work on behalf of the Australian people. The Senate, by moving this motion which has passed the Senate calling on this House to agree to a conference, is saying, 'Let us engage sensibly on these matters.' On this side of the House, we think that does make sense.

That is why I have moved that this message be considered immediately. If that motion succeeds, I will then very constructively be moving a motion which would set out a way forward. What we believe that could involve is a conference of 12 delegates. The House would be represented at the conference by 12 delegates, four nominated by the Leader of the House, four nominated by the Manager of Opposition Business and four drawn from the crossbench, nominated by the Chief Opposition Whip. So we are engaging constructively with the Senate, and we call on the government to engage constructively with the Senate so that we can take seriously our responsibilities in this House.

I close with this proposition. It is completely unacceptable for the House, under the leadership of this government and this Leader of the House, to simply seek to wash its hands of the matter and not engage with bills which have been passed by the Senate. It's unprecedented. The action taken by the Senate to call for a conference is one way forward, and we support it. (Time expired)

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