Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I am delighted that Senator Heffernan has entered the chamber and I am happy to debate those issues. Let us not pretend that allocating all the chairs of these committees to government members is not about taking away effective review of legislation. That is precisely what we are going to see under this new system.

We had Senator Minchin talking about the proud tradition of the Liberal Party, and yet we have seen the proud tradition engaged in bullying and abuse—no doubt, we will cop some of that shortly. A bit of abuse does not go astray in these processes, either. What we are seeing here is part of the hubris of the government. The government has the numbers; it can take control of the committees, it is going to take control of the committees and it is going to undermine the democratic process in this house of review.

We have also heard from Senator Minchin where this came from. It came from the backbench of the coalition, supposedly because too many references were being made to references committees instead of legislation committees. The reason given for that was that the references committees were chaired by non-government members and could effectively mount an investigation. Earlier this evening, Senator Minchin said that that was precisely the motivation for taking over the chairs of these committees. We were told that we are going to see effective and efficient operation of the Senate, but we are not. We are going to see what we have been experiencing in the last 12 months: you can no longer get what you need in order to scrutinise government. There are no more returns to order. We are not going to get the kind of scrutiny that we have seen in some of the Senate committees during the 10 years of the Howard government. What we are going to get is an Australian community that is more and more sceptical about the Howard government exercising total control over both houses.

Earlier this evening Senator Minchin said that the fact that it has not got total control is demonstrated by the behaviour of the backbench in relation to the proposed immigration legislation, and that the fact that the Prime Minister has lost control of his backbench demonstrates that there is not this capacity to overwhelm any legislation or decisions in the Senate. But the Australian community ought not to have to rely on the courage of a few backbenchers in order to get appropriate review and scrutiny of legislation. The Australian community is entitled to have qualified, talented and interested senators taking the chairs of these committees, regardless of whether they come from the government or the opposition benches. I think it is entirely appropriate that some non-government senators chair some of these committees. With the government not only having the chair but also having the majority of members on these committees, we are going to see people giving up on the Senate committee system. That in itself will be very sad.

I will be interested to see just how enthusiastic some of the government backbenchers are about coming along to maintain a quorum in these committees as they are going to operate under the changed rules, because I think it is going to be quite interesting to see whether there is that level of commitment now that the two additional chairs have been taken away from the backbenchers who thought that they might get those rewards of office.

The other thing that is of concern is the fact that the committee may appoint a subcommittee consisting of three or more of its members and refer to any such subcommittee any other matters which the committee is empowered to consider. What is to stop a government dominated, government chaired committee setting up a subcommittee of its own members? That will be an interesting phenomenon, and we will see even less scrutiny than we already have.

I have seen what happens when governments decide to manipulate longstanding parliamentary processes to their own advantage. Ultimately it comes back to bite them. Ultimately that occurs, and it will occur in the Tasmanian parliament given enough time. But in the meantime the people of Tasmania have been seriously short-changed by the reduction in the numbers that has taken away serious democratic representation in that state. Just as the people of Tasmania are now acknowledging that, the height of hypocrisy I have to comment on here is that of the member for Denison, Michael Hodgman. He was the one who threatened Tony Rundle—the then Premier—with crossing the floor unless Tony Rundle supported the Labor Party’s motion to reduce the numbers. The reason for that was that Bob Cheek, who was also a Liberal member for Denison—as you would well know, Mr Acting Deputy President Barnett—had already said he was going to cross the floor. The member for Denison, Michael Hodgman, was terrified that he would lose out in the deal. They both threatened Tony Rundle with crossing the floor, which was the motivation for Tony Rundle to embrace the cut in the numbers in a way that would disadvantage the Greens, who in this case were the minor party.

Now the member for Denison, Michael Hodgman, makes speech after speech everywhere saying, ‘Oh dear; democracy in Tasmania has been undermined by these changes.’ He now realises it was a mistake, because the Liberal Party are going to be in opposition forever at this rate because of what they did to themselves. Now he wants it changed again, without acknowledging any of his own responsibility in having forced the absolute gutting of the Tasmanian parliament. He stands condemned for his role in it. At the time I said to the then Premier of Tasmania, Tony Rundle, that he might think he was doing in the Greens, but he was destroying the Liberal Party forever because the Liberal Party could never be in government in Tasmania if they got rid of the Greens, because the only thing that kept Labor from having a majority in Tasmania was Green representation in the parliament. But they would not have a bar of it, and one only has to look at the consequent years to see that that was the case.

That is why I am standing here today saying that governments who get majorities and decide to undermine democratic institutions and democratic processes, change the system to their own advantage, remove the possibility of opposition members chairing committees and remove genuine scrutiny have the boomerang come back and hit them in the head. The Australian people deserve a house of review. A house of review means appropriate scrutiny of legislation and appropriate scrutiny of governments. You achieve that through estimates committees, through Senate references committees and through Senate legislation committees. You achieve it through returns to order. You achieve it through getting references up.

Only a few months ago I moved in this Senate for a reference to look at all of the energy options for Australia because of growing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing oil prices. The government was having an investigation into uranium. I moved for the whole range of energy options to be considered, and it was defeated. It was defeated on the numbers. Nothing will be referred unless the government decides that it wants a reference to proceed, and that is not the best interests of good governance in this country.

However, the hubris that has set in with the government will mean that at next year’s federal election the Senate will become the focus of the election, which it has not been for many years. Control of the Senate will become a major election issue. Rescuing the Senate from the autocratic way in which the government is treating it will be something on the minds of the Australian people. They will realise that today there was a lucky escape for this country where the Howard government tried to excise the whole mainland of Australia, when the Prime Minister said only a couple of years ago that it was a complete nonsense to suggest that he would ever try something like that. It was an attack on the sovereignty of Australia. It was kowtowing to Indonesia. It was pathetic.

The Australian people are going to say to themselves, ‘We do not want this government to control both houses.’ There will be a backlash and there will be a balance of power in the Senate after next year’s federal election. We will change it back again to give appropriate scrutiny to government legislation—appropriate scrutiny that is afforded by the committee system—and we will return to having non-government chairs on some of the committees, as ought to be the case.

Talented people in this Senate deserve the opportunity to represent their country in the best way that they can. The denial of that is to the benefit of the backbench of the governing party, in this case the coalition, whose hands were out for two extra Senate chairs for no better reasoning than: ‘Pick a number between eight and 16. Ten’s good; it’ll give us two extra chairs. Pay off two extra backbenchers to effectively chair those committees.’ What sort of reasoning is that for taking away the scrutiny that ought to be here with this house of review?

I want to conclude by reinforcing that the opposition parties in no way wanted their participation in the committee looking at these changes to be taken as support for the restructuring of the committee system, which they strongly disagreed with in principle. It is absolutely clear that this is simply a grab for power which is going to backfire on the government and make rescuing the Senate the priority in next year’s federal election.