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

You ought to shout about this. This is the sort of thing that highlights the incredible arrogance of this government: a piece of legislation, which we have not seen, which we understand may involve 130 amendments, is being referred to a committee. And it is not just any piece of legislation; it is one of the most sensitive pieces of legislation in the armoury of the minister for the environment. And it is not as if it is any portfolio. It is a portfolio that has been characterised by one scandal after another by a minister who has demonstrated time and time again that he is prepared to intervene in a blatantly political manner to produce political results. He has acted quite clearly, with regard to heritage matters, in breach of the law. And now we are told we are going to have amendments to this legislation, contained in a bill that this chamber has not seen. And you ask me whether or not I should be upset about that! Every senator in this place should be very upset about that, because it demonstrates the complete contempt that this government is showing towards this parliament. It is a disgrace—a complete and total disgrace.

Why do we bother seeing any of the legislation, if this is the attitude? It has been through the cabinet, presumably—that is all we need. Perhaps we should ask the cabinet minister: ‘Have your colleagues agreed?’ That should be satisfactory, surely. Is that the standard you expect? It is not the standard that the opposition expects. We saw this minister with the fiasco around the parrots—where, in Bald Hills in Victoria, he sought to set that extraordinarily dangerous precedent of arbitrarily politically interfering in a major development and infrastructure process. He has sought to use his powers under this legislation to act in such an arbitrary way, and you want us to agree to amendments that we have not seen. You want to refer it to a committee, saying, ‘You should be able to wrap this up within a fortnight.’ Why bother?