Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

It is clear that the Labor Party does not agree with this motion. This motion seeks to remove the spillover days from budget estimates. That might be regarded as a technical term, but let me reduce it to what it in fact is. It is a diminution of the ability of this Senate to scrutinise budget estimates and this government during that time. This motion takes away the opportunity to have spillover days—that is, two Fridays in the fortnight—which we use to question this government and to keep this government accountable to its commitment to the budget and other matters more generally. This says to the opposition, to minor parties and to the Senate more generally, ‘We’re going to remove the ability for you to continue to use Fridays to scrutinise and keep this government to its promises and to keep it accountable for its actions.’

The argument that is going to be run by the government is that the spillover day is not used very much—but that is precisely the reason that the spillover day is necessary. Committees that have met through the week—say, on the Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday—and have not completed their task in that time can utilise the spillover day, the Friday, as a safety valve to keep this government accountable. In other words, these committees can use those spillover days to scrutinise the machinery of government. That ensures that the four days can be used effectively and, where necessary, the fifth day can be used by those committees. It allows the committees to use Friday not as an ordinary day as part of the budget estimates week but as a spillover. In other words, the Friday can be used as additional day if the work of the committee has not been completed and so any additional matters can be dealt with.

What is more astonishing is that this government is sending the message that it does not even trust its own committees. The committees are chaired by government senators and are in majority control by coalition senators. Therefore, this motion is a double whammy. It not only says, ‘We’re going to take away your ability to use the Friday as a spillover, as a safety valve, to allow scrutiny,’ but also says, ‘We don’t trust our own committee chairs, dominated by coalition senators, to be able to control the committee or to use the spillover, or the extra day, wisely.’ This motion is corralling its own coalition senators and saying, ‘We don’t think you are capable of making that decision so, rather, we will make that decision for you, as a government that dominates and uses its Senate numbers to whack the Senate.’ This motion says that we cannot have what we have had for many years now—that is, the safety valve of the spillover day.

If you go back through the records to 1995-96, the statistics show that the Fridays have not been abused. So the argument cannot be run by this government that there has been abuse of the Friday or that the Senate committees have run wild and need to be corralled or its own coalition senators need to be reined in. If you look at the statistics, you see that Fridays have been used for what they were intended to be used for—that is, as a safety valve to deal with matters that were not finalised during the week. They have not been used as a 9 am to 11 pm slot. They have generally been used for matters that were not completed in the estimates week. When you go through the list you see that the Fridays have been used by various committees through the years. For example, in 2001-02 the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee dealing with the maritime incident—more generally known as ‘kids overboard’—used the Friday because the committee’s work was not completed and they required the additional day, the Friday, to finalise their scrutiny of the budget week and to finalise the estimates process that was required.

The foreign affairs, defence and trade committee’s hearings spilled over on the Friday in 2004-05 to look at Abu Ghraib. It is another good example of where the foreign affairs, defence and trade committee required additional time to look at a particular issue. They used the Friday to allow the scrutiny of the committee to continue and for their work to be finalised. Put simply, a committee will sit during the week. It might deal with a very difficult issues such as Abu Ghraib through the week and not complete its scrutiny. Therefore the Friday is used to finalise its work—and not fully. Generally speaking, it is completed on the Friday when those matters have been dealt with and the committee is finalised. SIEVX, in 2001-2002, as I indicated earlier, occurred in the same fashion.

Again, if you look at the Rau matter—the immigration debacle—this government did not want to allow a spill-over day. The Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee in 2005-06 spilled over onto the Friday with the Cornelia Rau matter. Why? Because on the Cornelia Rau issue it took up a significant amount of time to get to the bottom of what had happened. As we know, the government had a lot to answer for. The Friday was again used to allow the ordinary work of the committee to be finalised, as well as to allow any return to that substantive issue. If that was not enough, the following year legal and constitutional had the Solon and Alvarez issue and the Friday was again used.

We have a government that says: ‘In terms of spill-overs, the committee will have time through the week to deal with issues as they may arise. But if it wants ordinary scrutiny, if it wants to continue looking at those matters which are important and need scrutiny’—and clearly they need scrutiny—‘then we won’t allow the spill-over day to be used at all because we’re going to remove it. We’re not going to have the additional day at all.’

The government’s clear message to not only this chamber but the Australian people is: ‘We want to continue to have a situation where we can control the Senate to such an extent that we can close down scrutiny, not allow scrutiny, because we’re going to remove the ability for that committee to do its ordinary work, to complete it and to use the spill-over days as needed.’ As needed—that is the point that the government seem to have missed in this whole debate. As I have said, the chair of the committee might decide that the work has not been finalised and to use the spill-over day.

We will have an additional problem that this government has avoided: the spill-over day has been an important mechanism not only to ensure that those issues are scrutinised but also to ensure that the debate about additional time for committees does not come back in here as a notice of motion to allow the committee to sit on a Thursday night, a Wednesday night or another night when parliament is sitting or another day through the year. That is what will happen. Where spill-over days are removed from this process, committees will then seek additional days and argue for that time, if it is not a matter that is arrived at or agreed to by the committee—and much of it is, quite frankly. So it is not only going to be confined to the committee arguing about it. If the committee says, ‘No, you have had your time,’ then there will be notices of motion moved in the Senate seeking additional time for committees to debate the issue that is at large because the spill-over day was not available to be used.

Another problem will be created by the government’s arrogance because the committees that have been unable to use the spill-over day to finalise a matter, to look into a matter, to complete a matter or to ensure that there has been proper scrutiny of a coalition or a government bungle will come in here and move a notice of motion. We will argue why a committee should not have additional time to deal with it. The government will be faced with the problem of arguing against it. Given that it has already said no to a spill-over day, it will be in a worse position trying to convince the Australian population, let alone the Senate, why it should not accede to further scrutiny of this issue because it has taken away the ability of a committee to look at matters.

The government is becoming so arrogant that it has ignored the real debate that will occur down the track. It will have to shut that debate down. It will have to say, ‘No, we don’t want you to look into that particular issue,’ and it will have to justify why it will not want the committee to look into a particular issue at another time, whereas the short answer is: the spill-over day could have been used for that. Again, all this government has done is highlight its arrogance by trying to shut down scrutiny and reduce the effectiveness of the committee process to do its ordinary work of scrutinising the government.

You will have committees unable to discharge their functions. You will have arguments about unreasonable or insufficient time being given for important issues. You will have committees asking for extensions of time. The committee chairs, I suspect, will be coming back to the government and saying: ‘We didn’t get the work completed. We want additional time. You’ll have to find time for that as well.’ You will have senators on those committees coming into this chamber and moving motions asking for additional time. Rather than sensibly allowing a process of spill-over days, the government has opened Pandora’s box, effectively, and will not be able to argue that there is the safety valve of a spill-over day to be used. It beggars belief that the government has fallen for this, but perhaps it thought that it could arrogantly deal with this by simply removing the spill-over day and saying, ‘We’re going to close down scrutiny.’ It really does beggar belief.

The wider issue, of course, is that that is what the government is in fact doing. This is another nail in the coffin for the ability of the Senate to scrutinise the government’s work. When former Senator Hill was the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, he recognised that the Senate plays a very important role in scrutinising the government. I looked for a statement from Senator Minchin, but perhaps he has not been the leader long enough to be able to echo those phrases here. It is completely unseemly that this government will not allow itself to be scrutinised by the Senate. It seems to be another nail in the coffin, as I have said, with this government wanting to abuse the Senate process and gain absolute power.

Let us examine the range of things that the government has already done. It has knocked back the ability to have a censure motion. It has curtailed question time. The Telstra bill, the Work Choices bill, the Welfare to Work bill and the voluntary student union bill are just some of the bills that the government exempted from the cut-off, meaning they were subject to less scrutiny. The government gagged the Telstra debate and guillotined it. That was the Howard government imposing the guillotine on a debate concerning about $30 billion of taxpayer assets in five bills. The gag was used three times in that debate. In the Telstra inquiry, the government allowed only one day of hearings. Because of the arrogance of this government, it sought to ensure that the speakers list for debate on the Telstra bill would be curtailed. It also denied committee references to allow scrutiny into more general areas. Back on 11 October, the debate on the variation of routine of business and sitting hours was gagged twice by Minister Ellison.

This issue of no spill-over days came up this year, and the government has moved the motion today. The government gagged the Work Choices inquiry. In that debate, if senators proposed amendments to the reference of the Work Choices inquiry, they were stopped. When you start to add up the abuses in this place, you see that the government has managed to accumulate many abuses in a very short space of time. This is simply one more we will catalogue of where the government has said: ‘This government does not want to be scrutinised. This government does not want or allow scrutiny into its affairs.’ The antiterrorism bill and the welfare bill were guillotined and the debate was gagged on 5 December last year. Senator Abetz’s attack on the Clerk was one step too far. Similarly, Senator McGauran’s finger was one step too far.

If this government thinks we are going to let those abuses slide, it should think very carefully about the abuses I have listed. I will be raising them, as I have said in the past, every time I come here to ensure that this government recognises its abuses in this place and what it has been doing to take away the ability of the opposition and the minor parties to scrutinise this legislation, these bills and, of course, the budget and our ability to keep this government accountable. This government has also ensured that there will be less time available to debate bills.

These outrages of this government continue, and not having the spill-over days is just one more example of the removal of the ability to scrutinise. This government should take this as a wake-up call and allow the spill-over days for the purpose for which they were intended—that is, as a safety valve for committees to do their work.