Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

The Democrats will of course support this referral to the Procedure Committee of the proposed changes to the Senate committee system. It is, of course, what the government should have done in the first instance, but it has been forced to do so now because of the reaction to this proposal, I think. I want to start today by quoting the Prime Minister. He said, just after the 2004 election:

I want to assure the Australian people that the Government will use its majority in the new Senate very carefully, very wisely, and not provocatively.

Twelve months later, it seems that neither the Prime Minister nor the government members of the Senate could contain themselves any longer, and they are now saying: ‘We have to do this. We have to take over the committee system, we have to close down the references committees and we have to put coalition chairs in charge of those committees. Therefore, we need a majority of coalition members on those committees.’

I think it was Senator McGauran who said, ‘We have to do this because we are now in a majority.’ I remind senators opposite that they are in a majority—as has been pointed out many times in this debate—but it is a majority of one. Had it been the case that the Australian people had voted for only coalition members to represent them in the Senate, this might be a cogent argument. But it is not, because there is a balance in this place—and this place depends on that balance in order to work effectively.

While I am on the subject of Senator McGauran, I note that he came into the chamber and said—as he often does—that the Democrats had not spoken on this debate. They had. If he had been listening, watching or looking at his monitor he would have known that. So, as usual, taking no notice of what anyone says in this place, he declared that the Democrats had not spoken. My colleague Senator Bartlett had spoken in this debate just a couple of speakers before Senator McGauran. So wrong again, Senator McGauran.

Senator McGauran and others said, ‘All we are doing here is going back to the situation we had in 1994.’ How that is an argument, I do not know. In 1994 very sensible reforms were put in place to make the committee system work in terms of being a check on government and a scrutiny of what the government was doing, and to give the committee system the capacity to inquire into not only bills but also broader references—which have been the hallmark of this place and why people regard the Senate as such an important institution.

The government says, ‘It will be more efficient if we have government chairs, and we will stop all those frivolous proposals for inquiries that have been getting up in the past few years’—all of it total nonsense! This is a sledgehammer approach. This is parliamentary dictatorship writ large. It is a grab for power. It is an attempt to make the Senate into the twin, if you like, of the House of Representatives—for it to be no more able to be a check on government than is the House of Representatives, which is a rubber stamp, as we all know. It will stifle criticism and it will stifle scrutiny of government actions—or inactions, as the case may be.

I want to refer to the Senate inquiries that were not given the go-ahead over the last 12 months that would have otherwise been up and under way at this point. One of them—I think one of the most important—was the impact of the welfare changes on people with disabilities. This was an extraordinary decision on the part of the government. There is huge criticism out there about what is going to happen to people with mental illness and people with disabilities across the board when the new changes come in. Matters also not given the go-ahead included issues of overtime and shift allowances and the impact on work and family; the deportation of Mr Scott Parkin; the involvement of the Wheat Board in the Iraq oil for food program; and the adequacy of the aviation safety regime in this country—criticised hugely by pilots and others in the aviation industry, but, no, we are not going to look at it. Other matters include the processes for assisting refugees and humanitarian visa holders—again, knocked back by the government and yet we know that there are people who are destitute and dependent on charities to exist, to eat; and the impact of the proposed changes to cross-media laws. And we have just debated a reference for an inquiry on social security regulations today, which was knocked back but would otherwise have been sent to a committee for a proper inquiry.

I have just gone through a couple of the issues that would otherwise have been agreed to but were not because the government had the majority in this place. As I understand it, the situation is that the Senate Finance and Public Administration References Committee currently has no inquiry—previously unheard of—and it is the same with the Senate Economics References Committee, which has no inquiry at the present time into a references matter.

What will be the effect of the government taking over the chairs of these committees? The chair writes the report—making this a very influential position—and can add or take out whatever he or she chooses. It is a very important role in that sense. The chair is also very influential in deciding about the hearings, the witnesses who will appear and, of course, the all-important recommendations. If the government decides that there is no case for the government to answer or it disagrees with a lot of the people who come before that committee, government members can decide on a report which does not take those into account and then the opposition is left with doing a dissenting report, additional remarks or something of that sort.

As I said earlier, a lot of the argument from the government, from those on that side, is that we are just returning to 1994. So I went back to have a look at what happened in 1994. As I understand it, at that time, a subcommittee of procedure was set up, which included former Senator Vicki Bourne for the Democrats, Senator Kemp, Senators Ray and Faulkner and former Senator Reid. They sat down and carefully considered suggestions and ways of improving our Senate committee system and came up with a proposal which was then adopted by the Senate. Even though the Labor Party was in government at that time, quite a lot of the suggestions came through from opposition members and they were adopted.

I came across the submission that was made to the Procedure Committee by coalition senators. It drew attention to the British House of Commons and how the system there worked:

... the chairs of specialist select committees, which are the equivalent of the Senate’s legislative and general purpose standing committees and somewhat equivalent to estimates committees, are shared among the parties by agreement—

that is, the chair is shared amongst other parties. It continues:

These committees elect their own chairs and are free to choose any member of the agreed party. Before the membership of the committees is reappointed at the beginning of each Parliament, an agreement is negotiated between the parties as to which parties will take the Chair of which committees. In the absence of agreement, the matter may be settled by the House, but the occasion for this has not arisen.

Chairs are shared in this way because they are seen as parliamentary positions and not government positions and are seen as such by the public. When chairs meet to discuss matters of mutual interest and coordinate the activities of the committee, all parties are represented. Thus, in this instance, there is a meaningful separation of powers between the Parliament and the Executive.

…         …         …

Sharing of chairs on standing and estimates committees in the Senate could enhance the parliamentary character of their work and improve the public standing as well as give representation to the non-government parties or the chairs’ group.

Its recommendations were:

The chairs of the Senate standing committee should be distributed among the parties in a way which reflects their representation in the Senate.

That is all those on this side of the chamber are arguing for. We are not saying that the opposition should chair more of the committees than the government; we are saying: let us look at the fair proportion within the chamber and have it reflect that proportion. Just because you have a majority of one does not mean you take over the whole chamber.

The recommendation goes on to say:

Chairs of the estimates committee should also reflect party strength in the chamber.

It does. The government has the chair of the estimates committee by virtue of them being the responsibility of the legislation committees.

Chairs of the domestic standing committee should be divided equitably between the parties, chairs and composition of select committees should be continued by the chamber and there should be one government chair and one opposition chair for the two legislative scrutiny standing committees.

They were the recommendations of the coalition back in 1994. It makes a difference that they were in opposition and not in government. When you are in government you take whatever advantage you can grab, and that is exactly what this government has done.

Senator Kemp had quite a lot to say about the debate on this, and I think it is worth repeating what he said. He poses the question: why do we need this radical change? He says:

With the changes in the chairs of committees, the balance of incentives has been altered. We do not want to think ill of our opponents, but if one is a government chair of a committee it is not in the interests of the government or the Senate to pursue with great vigour a contentious issue which may cause embarrassment to ones colleagues and the government. I do not say that that has happened, but on the incentives basis there is not that need or desire to get out and investigate issues which may well cause some difficulty to the government.

On the other hand, as non-government senators will now be chairing committees there is more incentive for those people to show their spurs and to show what an effective committee system can do. This will cause a reinvigoration of the Senate committee system and a reassertion of what most people would understand to be the role of the parliament. We will act more effectively as a parliament. When we look back on this after a decade I will be surprised if we do not see this as radical reform—reform which will have major effects. It will cause problems to this government and to subsequent governments. Any change in the parliamentary system which requires governments to be more accountable has that effect.

The Democrats could not agree more with that coalition senator’s submission and, as I say, my former colleague Senator Bourne was one who pushed very hard for those changes to be made and some others, which I will mention in a moment.

This is hypocrisy writ large. We have got government members coming in and saying, ‘The system isn’t working from the government’s perspective.’ Too many committee reports have come out criticising government and challenging it over a whole range of issues. But to come in here and say, ‘It’s not efficient. It doesn’t work. Frivolous things are taking place’ is a nonsense.

What I am interested in in this whole debate is what happens next. I am pleased that this has been referred to Procedure and I hope that Procedure considers carefully some of these other matters. Many of them were not mentioned in Senator Minchin’s letter to leaders and whips the other day—leaders and whips, I might add, have become a farce as well because we are simply told what the government is going to do, and there is very little by way of negotiation, as has been the case for the last 12 months.

There was no mention about select committees: are we going to get rid of them; are the two extra committees that are going to be added to the current standing set of eight going to effectively be the select committees? I notice there is no inquiry under way that is using the select committee process. I feel very strongly that that is a very necessary part of the options that are available to us. In the case of the mental health inquiry, the select committee was the choice that we made and it allowed senators to opt onto that committee because they had an interest in that issue. I think that is a worthwhile option for senators. It is also the case that when we put that Senate inquiry forward, the community affairs committee already had many inquiries under way and it would have been inappropriate for us to land another one on them. So there are often very good reasons for us to move to a select committee.

The government has criticised the fact that in this place we have now and again referred legislation to references committees. I think the minister said that this was one of the reasons why the government was now moving. There was a case, I remember, where we referred the federal environment laws to a references committee, and we did that because the references committee had some years earlier done a major inquiry into the powers of the federal government in terms of the environment. That was the precursor to the legislation which finally came through, so it was appropriate that that committee continue its work by looking at the legislation.

At the end of the day, there were something like 500 amendments put to that legislation which strengthened and improved it and with which the government agreed. I would like to hear from the opposition why that was a problem. What was problematic about that very rare instance of legislation being referred to a committee which had the expertise to do it?

It is not true to say that they are the same people on the two sets of committees; they are not. There are many committees where I am on the legislation committee as a participating member but not on the references committee, and that is true of other senators in this place. Another very important part of the change that was made in 1994 was to allow senators who were not full members of committees to be participating members. Senators in this place have used that provision very extensively and very appropriately so that all members of this place can opt onto a committee. They do not have voting rights necessarily, but they can be part of the hearings, they can be part of the whole process, they can receive the information, the reports and the submissions and they can, in every other respect, be a member of those committees. That is part of the democracy which is so important in this place. We heard nothing about participating members. Are we going to undo that as well? Is it going to mean that participating members will not get a look in; that they will have to wait and rely on the report of the chair to make up their mind on how to deal with legislation or even with references? That is a question that I pose.

The other big question for us is whether this is not really the beginning of an opportunity to reshuffle chairs more generally. Much has been made of the fact that legislation committees have come down with reports which criticise government. We have them frequently—whether it is about immigration, whether it is about ASIO, whether it is about a whole suite of government legislation—and for people on this side of the chamber they have had disastrous implications, and for some on the other side as well, including the chairs of some committees. Is this a chance for the government to reshuffle those committees and get rid of the people who currently chair those committees and are not afraid to speak out? They are afraid to cross the floor, I might say, but they are not afraid to speak out when it comes to hearing the evidence and accurately putting it into the report, therefore suggesting that the bill either should not go ahead until the problems are resolved or should not go ahead at all, in some cases. I think that in the current climate that is a really courageous act and I congratulate those chairs who have done it. Mind you, it would be very difficult to ignore the evidence that comes before you, I would have thought, and to come to any other conclusion in those instances. Maybe this is just the thin edge of the wedge. Maybe we will see the government come along and move those chairs to committees where they cannot do so much damage to government. Maybe we will see Senator Payne heading up the library committee—not to disparage the library committee; it is very important, but it does not have quite the same impact in terms of criticising government legislation as the current ones do.

I urge the Procedure Committee to very carefully consider this proposal. I hope they make a recommendation to the government that they toss it out and that it does indeed get tossed out. It does diminish the ability of the Senate to scrutinise government. It does diminish the ability of the Senate to conduct the sort of inquiries to which people feel confident to make submissions. And I think that was a good point made in the chamber last night: that people are going to be less likely to go to the effort of making a submission and turn up for the hearings, knowing that it is chaired by the government and that, possibly, if they are critical of the government position, their views will not be reflected in the report. I think that is a really significant consideration. People do regard the Senate process in terms of its inquiries and hearings as a really good one at the present time, but this is likely to lose favour, I think, with people if we go down this path.