Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Unless there is anyone else to speak, I will close the debate. We have now heard a half-hearted attempt to justify why a Senate inquiry should not be had into this. The government hides behind its own committee to say that there should not be an inquiry in this place. In the committee estimates process last time, this government, with little notice, took away the spillover days. If you do not think that they were a valuable contribution to how the Senate works and how the estimates process works, I would ask you to reflect upon what it means. It potentially means that significant hours are removed from the debate during a committee process. This means that questions that would otherwise have been asked, with time allowed for a response, have to be put on notice, and there is then a wait for a careful answer months down the track. Answers are provided—there is no argument about that. But if those on the other side do not think that the estimates process has been sabotaged as a consequence of removing the estimates spillover days in May then I would ask them to reflect upon what that has meant and how the government has managed the committee process through the use of spillover days, which were used for the purpose of hearing certain issues such as the Vivian Solon matter.

One wonders whether the issue of Vivian Solon would have come out if spillover days were not available to be used. When you listen to the defence that has been put up today you hear that matters that go to the Australian Federal Police, such as what might be called the ‘early review’, will go ahead. Is there a guarantee that that review will be public? Is there a guarantee that the Australian Federal Police will provide that to the committee? I do not know. Do the government know? I am not sure they know that themselves. Is there a commitment from the Australian Federal Police to make that review available to the opposition? I cannot answer that.

A Senate committee would allow the Senate to look at those issues and examine them. The issue of numbers might be raised. There might be open debate about whether the information you have from the government’s perspective is accurate; there might be debate about whether my information is accurate. It is from the portfolio budget statements, so it would be interesting if it were not accurate. It might require an explanation from the Australian Federal Police—which they could have an opportunity to answer as an aside.

Was there a narrowly or widely cast Senate inquiry? There was, but it was prior to 9-11 and the significant increase in funding to the Australian Federal Police. If you are going to use figures which refer to quadrupling the size of the budget available to the AFP, I ask the government to reflect upon that figure and give me the base and the figure it has quadrupled to. These are all issues that could be debated and examined in an inquiry such as the one I am proposing. This is broader than simply looking at staffing numbers, as I indicated during the primary debate; it also looks at a national focus between state and federal police. There was no response from the government in respect of that issue or the impact that increasing the Australian Federal Police would have on state policing.

If the Australian Federal Police and the Commonwealth government are truly going to play a national role in fighting terrorism, drugs, crime and fraud, and in deployment overseas, they should also consider the wider implications of their recruitment in the short to medium term. The inquiry would also look at that, but there was no response from the government on that—there was no response from the other side in respect of that matter. Why? Because there is no argument against it. There is no argument to justify why a Senate inquiry would not be able to look at all of those issues and have access not just to the narrow focus of the Australian Federal Police but also to others who can make submissions, provide views and inform the Senate of what they think—not simply what the AFP might think or, for that matter, what I, Labor or other members of the committee might think—are the issues at hand. The strength of a Senate inquiry is to draw other submissions and parties into the debate to provide information and explanation. To discard that strength is to throw away a significant amount of scrutiny that this government would otherwise have. It is a poor response to say the AFP make themselves available—of course they do; they make themselves available to the legal and constitutional legislation committee now referred to as the standing committee. But that is not the point of an inquiry.

The point of an inquiry is to provide a much broader view, and everybody here knows that. In terms of the Australian Federal Police Association—I will not go to the specifics. To the senator who at least quoted from the document: look at where it mentions the reference to a review by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee or perhaps go there. I ask you to consider whether that is a viable position to advocate.

The broader issue is whether or not, after 9-11, the Australian Federal Police should have a broader inquiry into matters that go to national policing. There are, as I have argued, primarily cogent reasons why the Senate should have the ability to look into state and federal issues from a national and an overseas perspective. There is a strong argument for why this is so. To say that this place, since 1 July 2005, has continued to remain accountable in the same way that the Senate has been in the past is short-sighted and belies the figures that underpin it. When you look at the number of references that this government has accepted, the number of gags and guillotines shortening the debate, the number of amendments during committee stages and the shortening of Senate inquiries looking at particular legislation, you have to say in sum total: this government avoids scrutiny where it can. This is another example of this government avoiding scrutiny where it can.

Question put:

That the motion (That the motion (Senator Ludwig’s) be agreed to.) be agreed to.