Robert Ray (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

You were not involved and you were not properly briefed on the negotiations. What happened was that in 1994 the rather dispirited coalition parties decided they were a bit alienated from the system and would take all the chairmanships. Then they took a deep breath and thought: what will happen if we win government and all the chairmanships were always in the hands of the opposition? So they set up negotiations. Who negotiated? I did and former senator Noel Crichton-Browne did.

And isn’t it interesting that we, people that do not have a reputation for the ‘vision thing’ and who are not regarded as necessarily the most humane people on earth, in the system we developed, actually came up with one that did honour to the Senate—that balanced the competing rights of government and opposition, that recognised proportionality and that introduced a system that both sides could take something out of. That system was put to the Procedure Committee and was adopted by the Senate, I think, in August 1994. And only I was party to the full negotiations. I do not know how it was reported back to the coalition party room.

Of course, within two weeks, the spirit of that agreement—the main thrust of the legislative committees was to replace the committee stage in this chamber—had been broken. We were supposed to have the minister and public servants confronted by a legislative committee to replace the committee stage. And what did we get? We got public witnesses coming from all over Australia, and, in fact, the committees were then distorted.

While I am on the subject of distortion, Senator Ellison and Senator McGauran say the references committees are distorted. It was never intended that legislation not be referred to references committees. That was not the intention. The legislative committees were to deal with the committee stage, on the broad principle that the references committees could deal with legislation, provided the second reading speech had not been agreed to in the Senate. I cannot guarantee that on every occasion that was not the case; but I cannot remember a case of a general issue related to legislation going to a references committee when the bill had already passed the second reading stage in the Senate. The government is wrong in that accusation. It is part of the paranoia of the coalition.

Those changes were brought in in 1994. But what do we have now? We have the Prime Minister of this country saying, ‘In the previous 24 years until then the system worked well.’ Then why was it changed in 1994? If the operating principles from 1971 through to 1994 were so good, why was the system changed? I postulated in the Hansard of 24 August that I hoped this was not a matter of avarice and greed, that it was not just a grab for the money. At the time, I assumed, on balance, that it was not that. I assumed that it was people wanting change for the sake of the improvement of the system and not just to pick up a chairman’s salary for several of the coalition members at the time. I hope I am wrong on that.

I hear Senator McGauran make cheap shots in here and say that we are opposing this only because of the money. That has never been mentioned on this side. That is an unfair and an unjust accusation. It only demeans Senator McGauran. This is not about the money for chairs. Senator McGauran, if you want, let us take the payment off chairs. We will accept that. Take it off chairs and deputy chairs, make it about a matter of principle and see how many on your side front up and vote for it. Absolutely none. That is a typically despicable accusation, without any evidence, from a transferee from the National Party to the Liberal Party.

What this is really about is the attitude of the Howard government. The Howard government basically hate unions. We acknowledge that. They hate state Labor governments and they quite despise the ABC, but the thing they hate the most and the thing that they have been most particular about is their hatred of scrutiny. They have always objected to scrutiny. I have tried to work out why they hate scrutiny so much. I think it is because they have an image of themselves as being pure, principled and unimpeachable. The moment scrutiny exposes that they are not, they cannot cope with it. Therefore, they are determined to not have scrutiny or, as much as possible, to reduce scrutiny. So what do they do? Typically in the Liberal Party, they try to kill the ABC board, they bully the media and they make sure that the pesky old Senate becomes yet another Uncle Tom institution.

In Senator Minchin’s letter—and it was an interesting letter—he makes claims about efficiencies. The words ‘efficiencies’ and ‘effectiveness’ appear in his letter. I will come back to the word ‘effectiveness’. What efficiencies is he talking about? Is he talking about saving money with these mergers? If he is, I would like him to quantify it. I would like to know how much money we are going to save by reducing the number of committees. I would also like to know how many staff are going to go in these efficiencies. I think it is fair to tell staff of the Department of the Senate what the government has in mind. Are their jobs safe or is there going to be a purge of Senate staff? I would like to know that because the word ‘efficiencies’ appears in his letter.

In the same letter there is the classic government quote: ‘The government is proposing reform to the system.’ That is a perversion of the English language when you use the word ‘reform’ in that particular way. I could be equally provocative and talk about this being a rort, but I do not. This is about change. We can argue about whether it is regressive or progressive change, but do not use the word ‘reform’—one of the most abused words in the English language.

I hope Senator Minchin’s letter leaves open for negotiation the matter of how many committees there will be. It has been explained to us today that 10 is a virtue. I am very doubtful about that. I am extremely doubtful that expanding the number by another two is a virtue. It will spread scrutiny, it will make running the estimates process extremely difficult, given that the constraints of Hansard allow us to run four committees at once. I do not make the accusation, but I hope that the extra two committees is not about an extra two chairs. If it is not, let us sit down and negotiate rationality around the committee system.

I like to say that there has been a death in the family and that the Procedure Committee will deal with the will. That is the way we should approach things. Like Senator Evans, I acknowledge that the government has a majority and it has decided to do this. I do not like the fact that it has done it, but I do not believe in taking the bat and ball home. I think we should sit down and try to get the best system for the Senate—