Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Hansard source

I raise the point, Minister: who did the President consult? Which senators did he consult? Who did he ask about these changes? What constituency was the Senate President actually seeking to serve by these changes?

The minister for finance tells us that we have an average expenditure of $15,000 on the services that are currently available. I would like to know on what basis he calculated that cost. I would like to know on what basis as to the quality of services provided were these assessments made. What allowance was made for the commercial costs of the printing that we are supposed to be undertaking? We understand the new provisions will mean that all senators’ printing—everything from their Christmas cards and their calling cards to their compliments slips and their fax cover sheets—will have to be done privately. You would have to ask yourself what additional costs will be involved in that process.

I am particularly interested to know how the government will seek to establish the pro rata amounts between a senator and a member of the House of Representatives. We clearly have a situation with the carry-forward provision, as Senator Evans has pointed out, where there is a great disparity in the amounts of money that are available for senators and House of Representatives members. No-one on this side would suggest that there ought to be equality in terms of the amounts, but the disparity is now at a point where it is clearly ridiculous. If you think about the amounts of money that are actually available for the electoral cycle, we are now looking at a figure of some $540,000 that is available for members of the House of Representatives to be used for their own re-election. That equates with nothing like the amounts of money that are available for senators to undertake their work.

I take the view that it is not just a question of the size of the envelopes or whether or not we now have to go down to the MAPS store and ask the MAPS people to deliver envelopes to our office for us to then personally transfer to a local printer. That is all irrelevant to this major issue, although there are clearly additional costs involved that the minister for finance has not calculated. What I am very concerned about is the impact of these changes. One of our critical roles in this place as senators is to debate matters. Our critical role is to assess what is going on in this country at any particular time. We actually live in a bizarre age. We are seeing with this current Australian government, particularly under this Prime Minister, a severe case of antipodean cretinism. We have a clear case of the degrading of the importance of rational debate, of intellectual rigour, of the assessment of social and economic options. It is a dumbing down, Minister—and you are the perfect example of it. There is a dumbing down of the level of political debate in this country. Parliament ought to be the centre for the battle of ideas. It ought to be the arena in which issues and policies of enduring national significance are debated and thrashed out. It is the site where different visions of society should be tested and canvassed. The Senate has a particular role in that regard, and under the current arrangements the capacity to produce larger documents, policy documents, discussion documents, magazines and journals is of course apparent to us all; the ability to swap the paper entitlement around means that has occurred.

What we are seeing under this government is that the Senate’s role as a house of review is being restricted—and I do not just mean review of legislation; I mean reviewing the work of government, public policy and our vision of ourselves, our country and our place in the world. All of these matters are being restricted. A senator ought to be allowed to have the highest level of intellectual commitment—a commitment to rational debate and analysis—and the capacity to make appropriate judgements. But, under these regulations, we are confined to doing that on four sheets of paper; if it does not fit onto four sheets of paper, it is not to be covered by printing. We cannot print any documents that are longer than four sheets of paper. What is the mentality of a government that creates that as part of its regulations?

I take the view that the contest of ideas should occur not just in this chamber but throughout the community at large. It also ought to occur in the back rooms of parliament. Labor has a long tradition of emphasis on political debate and journalism. There is an equally long tradition of Labor politicians who have recognised and used the platform offered by journalism and the political press. Red Ted Theodore, John Curtin, Frank Anstey and a whole host of people have used their jobs as members of parliament to argue their case in the public debate using the printed word. Even Billy Hughes, in his early days, was interested in these sorts of things.

These regulations seek to change the communications entitlement to wilfully—and, I say, quite intentionally—frustrate senators who have an interest in fulfilling that important part of their work. What we have here is an attempt by this Prime Minister, through his deliberate personal intervention on this matter, to stifle debate and stunt the development and evaluation of policy and policy options. No case has been made for this, but we are now told that there is to be a restriction on what we can do. There will be a limit of $20,000 a year for all printing entitlements, and documents can be no more than four pages in length.

We are told that the changes that are being taken—moving away from the Department of the Senate—will be an improvement. I have had no trouble at all getting material published through the Black Rod’s office; it is not a restriction. I have put forward policy documents, journals of essays and a range of matters. I have used my entitlement to the full, without restriction by the Black Rod’s office. We are now told that this is the excuse that is being used to justify the transfer of these arrangements to DOFA. We are being told that if it does not fit on four sheets of A4 paper—we can have it on glossy paper if we want, of course—it does not count and that is not the appropriate way for it to be done.

It strikes me that this is an attack on our rights and our capacity to undertake our job. It will mean that some senators who currently use this allowance to do the job will not be able to do it. Senator Brandis, Senator Mason and even Senator Fifield have an interest in this sort work. They produce journals; they are interested in contributing to journals; they are in the business of articulating views about the direction in which this country should go. I happen not to agree with them, but I defend their right to do it—and it would seem that I defend it much more strongly than this Prime Minister does. We have a situation in which the work of senators is being undermined by the actions of the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has targets whom he cannot abide. I have mentioned Brandis, Mason and Fifield. They are not left-wingers; they are probably moderates. They are conservative libertarians; they are not particularly revolutionary men. But this Prime Minister aims to silence them. They join another group: Petro Georgiou, Bruce Baird and Judi Moylan. This is not exactly a roll call of John Howard’s favourites. What we are seeing with this device is the Prime Minister’s determination to silence the Peter Costello acolytes. This device is being used by the Prime Minister to restrict—