Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Hansard source

After that rather unfortunate and disappointing display of bile and vitriol from Senator Faulkner, could I just say, on a positive note, that I am pleased that these changes were referred to the Procedure Committee, the report of which we are now considering. I appreciate the cooperation of non-government parties in the operation of the Procedure Committee and the deliberations that occurred. I appreciate the fact that at the meeting, which was in fact the first meeting of the Procedure Committee that I had ever attended, it was agreed at the outset that, while the opposition parties could not—and I accept this—agree with the direction of the government’s proposals, they wished to discuss positively the best way to implement the arrangements. On that basis, I think it was a very constructive operation.

This is a very good report. Indeed, we were persuaded by the opposition parties that, as the committee recommends, the proposal to have eight committees with eight members was the most sensible way to proceed. I want to thank all members of that committee. I want to thank the members of the Senate staff who supported that committee in their work in ensuring that the report was produced. It is a very helpful, productive and good report. I commend it to the Senate and I trust that its recommendations will be supported by all.

I turn to the substance of the proposed changes, and I will get to Senator Faulkner’s rather unfortunate remarks in due course. There has been a significant amount of hysteria generated about what the government is proposing, and I would like to respond to some of the criticisms and hysteria. Firstly, I make the point that, contrary to speculation by some, these proposed changes did not originate in the Prime Minister’s office. They originated in the backbench of the coalition. The coalition members brought to the attention of the coalition Senate party room the proposals that you see before you, which did ultimately receive the support and endorsement of the Prime Minister. The initiative came very much from our backbenchers.

They were motivated I think by the regrettable abuse of the current arrangements that has occurred. I came into this place just at the time that the current arrangements were put in place. At the time, as a lowly coalition opposition backbencher, I could not quite understand their motivation or their purpose. I think the proper explanation for the current arrangements was that at that time you had a governing party in the Senate with probably the lowest number of senators any governing party has ever had—only 30 of the 76 senators, I think—yet it chaired all the committees. There was a majority of the Senate not particularly happy with that arrangement.

For our part, we have always said that the government should chair the main committees of the Senate, the portfolio committees. But an arrangement was agreed to that reflected the plurality the coalition then had in the Senate—that is, it had 36 senators compared to the ALP’s 30—and that created the duplicate committees, the references committees. I always found that system rather odd, but it could work if there were genuine regard for it. But the fact is that since 1996, on 46 separate occasions prior to the coalition majority being achieved, legislation has been referred by this Senate to references committees—a complete corruption of the current system. The current system can only operate if everybody is prepared to accept the difference and the separation between a legislation committee and a reference committee. But, once this Senate began to corrupt and abuse that arrangement by referring bills quite deliberately to references committees with a complete disregard for the Senate’s original decision to split these committees between legislation and references, the whole house of cards crumbled. What you see before you is very much a consequence of that corruption and abuse of the current arrangements by the Senate over the last 10 years in sending bills to references committees—obviously, for purposes that we all know.

The other very odd thing about the hysteria surrounding these very moderate and sensible proposals is that they return the Senate committee system to exactly the system that prevailed for the whole of the 13 years of the Hawke and Keating governments. So, for all the fire and brimstone that we hear from the Labor Party about how dreadful these changes are, they are a return in effect to exactly the arrangements we had for the 13 years when Labor was in office. In itself that totally exposes as a farce the arguments that we have heard from the Labor Party.

In that vein I want to reject out of hand the other straw man that has been erected, that somehow this is a reflection of what is described as the coalition’s ‘abuse’ of its Senate majority. It is said that we control the Senate. May I say quite openly and honestly that I think the events of today are evidence in themselves that the coalition does not control the Senate. That is a function of the very proud tradition of the Liberal and National parties of according to all members and senators the ultimate right to express their views openly on the floor of the parliament and without fear of retribution. So it is that Liberals and Nationals are able on occasion to cross the floor and vote against their party if they believe the circumstances warrant it. It is rare but it is something that the Liberal and National parties have always had as part of their tradition and one that is defended by us. It is quite unlike the Labor Party, where anyone who dares to do such a thing is subject to expulsion from the party. So by definition the government does not control the Senate.

Indeed, the coalition parties are the great defenders of the Senate. It has been part of our political philosophy for all of our existence, for the history of the Federation, to support the upper house, to support the Senate and to support the house of review. Since the coalition gained a technical majority in this place on 1 July last year, I think we have acted with due caution, responsibility and moderation. We have retained the tradition that an opposition party member occupies the position of Deputy President. If we had wanted to we could have used our numbers to end that tradition. I think that it is admirable that we resisted any temptation to do so. May I say, it was made easier by the fact that the Labor Party has put up one of its best senators for the position, and I commend Senator Hogg for the job that he does as Deputy President. But the fact is that if we were into abuse of our majority we could have easily ended that arrangement. We have respected question time throughout with equal numbers of questions—indeed, on balance, more questions for non-government parties, although we are in a majority in this place.

We have respected the proper place and role of estimates committees. I agree with Senator Faulkner: I think that the estimates system is a good process for governance, obviously for oppositions, but it is also good for public servants and ministers to know that they must run the gauntlet of estimates committees—and we have retained them in full. We have also retained the practice of referring legislation to committees.

It is my profound belief that with these changes you will see many more references going to committees as well. It is by definition the case that, with references committees controlled by minority parties in the Senate, the majority parties in the Senate are going to be less inclined to send references to committees, knowing that they will be political witch-hunts and that there will be abuse of the reference. I think you will find much more legitimate, objective consideration of significant national issues by Senate committees as a result of the changes we propose to make, as outlined in the committee report.

I want to refer to the unfortunate remarks made by Senator Faulkner and, at the outset, reject the outrageous abuse that he directed at Senator Eggleston. It was quite uncalled for, and I thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President, for correcting him. Senator Faulkner talked about history. I am very happy to take him up on that, because we on this side know all too well that it is the history of the Labor Party to have opposed the very existence of the Senate. For 60 years of the Labor Party’s existence, it has been part of its platform and constitution that the Senate should not exist. It has been totally opposed to it and has campaigned on that basis for most of its existence.

Two Labor Premiers at the moment are totally opposed to the equivalent of the Senate, the upper house, in their states. The Premier of my state, South Australia, is openly campaigning for the abolition of the Legislative Council in South Australia. Labor has never liked upper houses, and we have a modern-day Labor Premier campaigning openly to remove my state’s upper house. It was the Labor Party that got rid of the upper house in the state of Queensland, the only state not to have an upper house. It was removed by the Labor Party, which stacked that upper house with people who were prepared to vote to abolish it, and Mr Beattie, the current Labor Premier, dismisses with scant disregard anybody who suggests that Queensland should have an upper house. I believe that Queensland would be a much better state—a more accountable and more democratic state—if it had an upper house, and I long to see that day. The behaviour of Mr Rann and Mr Beattie exposes the underlying antipathy of the Labor Party to upper houses, and it is completely unacceptable for our side to be lectured about the Senate by the likes of Senator Faulkner. As a historian of the Labor Party, he knows better than most the long-held tradition in the Labor Party of opposing upper houses.

Senator Faulkner also regrettably descended into personal abuse of coalition senators by describing as venality and greed the motivation for our original proposal that there be 10 of these portfolio committees. I am sorry he made those remarks. They are quite untrue and unfair and an unacceptable reflection on members of the coalition. Indeed, one of the motivations for us originally recommending 10 was that we anticipated that the likes of Senator Faulkner would mount their criticism of these proposals on the basis that there are currently 16 committees and that, if we were to propose that there be only eight, they would say that this is a disaster and dreadful and that we are cutting the number of committees in half. There are really only eight committees, but there are two subsets of those eight committees. That is the current system, but it can be said that there are 16. In the face of what we anticipated would be violent attacks on cutting the number of committees in half, we thought that perhaps there is an argument for having 10 portfolio committees to mitigate the degree of criticism of the apparent reduction in the number of committees. We also thought that it was not unreasonable to suggest, in deference to those who uphold the virtues of Senate committees, that this would provide for an additional two Senate estimates committees and that that might be welcomed by those in the opposition. We were not to know that we would be roundly attacked in the way that we have been by Senator Faulkner for proposing that there be 10, not eight, of these committees. It just shows that with Senator Faulkner you can never win.

Senator Faulkner is also wrong to suggest that we had not given thought to the portfolio responsibilities of these two extra committees. Indeed, we discussed in the Procedure Committee, I recollect, the possibility of one of the subjects of employment and environment being given to these two committees so that those very important issues can be given more detailed consideration than is currently possible. We also gave consideration to the physical issues surrounding having two extra estimates committees, and we are satisfied that there may be some difficulties but that they can be overcome. Poor old Senator Faulkner was reduced to spending much of his speech simply reading out Ms Hilary Penfold’s letter. I mean no criticism of her. It is her proper responsibility to outline the difficulties, but I have no doubt that if we were to proceed with 10 committees those difficulties could easily be overcome with the proper application of the requisite resources. Nevertheless, we acknowledge that the Labor Party in particular mounted a constructive argument as to why eight committees would be more functional. We have accepted that recommendation in good spirit and in order to properly achieve consensus around the way in which this new system should operate, conceding of course that the non-government parties would prefer to keep the current arrangements.

I think Senator Faulkner is the one who should look back on his history with embarrassment and shame because of the Labor Party’s antipathy to upper houses and not abuse people like Senator Eggleston. I think the changes that are proposed are moderate, reasonable and sensible and will result in more functionality, efficiency and effectiveness for the portfolio committee system that operates in the Senate. I again remind the Labor Party and anyone listening that what we are proposing is essentially a return to the Senate committee system that operated for 13 years under the previous Labor government effectively and without any criticism from the Labor Party government at that time. In closing, I commend all those involved in the Senate Standing Committee on Procedure report—all members of the committee and the staff who supported it—and I look forward to the adoption of the report by the Senate.