Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

No. I will take that interjection, Senator Hurley. I do not know whether you were on the migration committee, but that unanimous committee report was written in conjunction with both opposition and government members. Both sides made a significant contribution. So you may feel that you want to go home, Senator Hurley, but I can tell you that I have been in this place for some time now and I have worked on many committees where unanimous results have been arrived at by concessions on both sides in order to make sure that unanimous reports have been presented. I will not name the committees, but there are certain committees that quite notorious for arriving at unanimous results.

Some mention was made of a reduction of Senate staff. When Senate staff—currently the same staff—have to service both legislation and reference committees, there is tremendous pressure on those staff. If they only had one committee to look after, they would be able to do it in a far more efficient manner. There is no suggestion, and never has been, that any staff are likely to lose their positions. When Senator Minchin talked about efficiencies, he was talking about the staff working for one committee instead of for two. So the enormous hours that some secretariat staff work just to get reports out will not be doubled up in the same manner that they are now.

I was disappointed by some of the comments of Senator Murray. He said that Senate staff will be reduced and that the resources available to senators to carry out inquiries will be reduced as they will be under government control. To the best of my knowledge, up until 1994 none of those things prevailed. I know that Senator Murray was not here until 1996, nor were a number of other people, but those who were present prior to 1994 know how efficiently the one-committee system can work.

Senator Ray made mention of the change in the committee system in 1994 and how it came about. If the system of dual committees is so good, I guess we should raise the question: why didn’t the Labor Party introduce it in 1983? Labor are saying that they felt the system was very poor previously, where we had one committee, where the government chaired every committee and where the government had the numbers on every committee although they had a minority in this chamber, except on one occasion—in 1984 they had a majority in this chamber, but on all other occasions they did not have a majority in this chamber. Labor chaired these committees for 10 years, but the Labor Party are now saying that the system was so poor between 1983 and 1994 that they changed it. They did not change it because of that at all. They changed it because it reflected the numbers in this chamber when they only had 30 members and the coalition had 36. It was changed by way of negotiation and, because of the very skilled negotiations of Senator Ray, we finished up with the current system. I am not one who believes that the system was broken in 1994. It reflected the numbers in the chamber, not whether the system was not working as well as it should.

I have been commenting about Senator Andrew Murray, and I am pleased that he is now in the chair so that if I say anything else he will be able to hear me directly. However, I do not believe that the comments that he made on this carried as much weight as many of the contributions he has made to the Senate.

Senator Evans talked about corrupting the role of the Senate. Does that mean that the role of the Senate was totally corrupt between 1983 and 1994? I do not believe it was. I am sure that Senator Faulkner does not believe that the role of the committees was corrupt between 1983 and 1994. I will be interested to hear whether he stands up and says he does think it was corrupt. I certainly do not believe it was corrupt and I do not believe that democracy was more difficult to practise either. The government happens to hold the numbers in this place and, by virtue of that, it is quite fair to say, it now controls what references go to committees and whether or not select committees will be set up for any particular purpose.

The move that has been proposed by the Leader of the Government in the Senate is not one that has just happened overnight; it is one that we as coalition senators have thought about for 12 months. It is not, as Senator Bob Brown says, something that comes out of the Prime Minister’s office. As a matter of fact, we had to go to the Prime Minister’s office to convince him of the merit of the proposal that we are putting forward. It is not about money, as Senator Ray said, and never has been. I calculated right from the very start that it was likely that, if they chose to make payments to deputy chairs of joint committees and House of Representatives committees, depending on the rate of salary that the Remuneration Tribunal might recommend for deputy chairs, it could cost in the vicinity of $300,000 or $400,000 a year. In the context of a total budget, I do not think that that is an expenditure that is over the top, although it may have taken us some time to convince those who control the purse strings that that is the way.

I know that Senator Faulkner is following me in this debate. I would like to give him nearly his 20 minutes. But can I say that I totally support the amendment to this motion. As Senator Ray said, we are giving the Procedure Committee the opportunity to discuss this. It is important that the Procedure Committee has a chance to discuss this. If the opposition thinks that 10 is not the correct number of committees then the Procedure Committee and the coalition members on that committee will be very prepared to listen to the arguments. I hope that at the end of the considerations by the Procedure Committee we come up with something that we can all agree on. I know we will not agree on the principle, but I hope that we can agree to some of the matters that are going to be raised by collapsing the committees into one single committee. I hope that that can be achieved by the Procedure Committee. I know that coalition members on that committee, of which I am one, are very prepared to listen and consider.