Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, I want to go to the process here. I cannot speak for the opposition, but certainly the Democrats were given no notice that the Trade Practices Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2005 was going to be brought on for immediate debate. That in itself is problematic. As I mentioned earlier today in relation to another matter, the Senate is a law-making body and the laws we make affect Australians directly and often for very long periods of time. The absence of notice and the absence of an opportunity to scrutinise what is actually put into law are big problems. It is not just that something might pass that people do not approve of in a policy sense; history has shown that, when deals are stitched together and legislation is rushed through very quickly before people change their minds, that can lead to bad drafting.

We have just had a report from a non-partisan Scrutiny of Bills Committee highlighting extremely bad drafting in legislation the government had months to work on. Yet here is something that is cobbled together and rushed through as part of a quickly stitched up deal. We are supposed to be confident that it is actually well drafted and that all the implications have been fully thought through.

From a purely process point of view, the arrangements are seriously problematic. That is why the Democrats continue to make this point. For the Democrats, a key part of our core value is, as our name implies, democracy. Making democracy work well is one of the jobs for the parliament. It is not just having an opportunity for senators to scrutinise amendments and proposed amendments. We might all like to think that we are the fount of all wisdom, but there are other people in the community who have expertise and knowledge. It is often very helpful for them to have the opportunity to properly scrutinise what is being done.

Those of us who have been around for any length of time know how these processes often work. You get people in and say, ‘Here is what we are going to do.’ You will get government ministers, bureaucrats or advisers explaining to people: ‘Here is what we are going to do. Here is how it is going to work.’ It all sounds great. In many cases, people who then sign up to those deals do not get to scrutinise the actual wording of the legislative changes—what the law will look like. There are many examples where the impact and the consequence of the actual wording are different from the promises.

Then there is the problem that Senator Conroy referred to. When the commitments relate not to promises that are actually put forward in legislation in black and white but to other promises about things that will happen down the track, the history of this government—and that of previous governments as well; this government is not the first government in history to break its promise on a matter—shows that even written commitments and promises from ministers saying that this is what will happen do not materialise. I can certainly say from the Democrats’ point of view that that has happened more than once in my period in this chamber: commitments given in the chamber—not just to the Democrats but to the Senate as a whole, and through the Senate to the Australian people—that certain things would happen have not materialised.

There is a very long list of flagrant breaches of promises where commitments are given as part of getting support for something being passed and, as soon as it is passed, all bets are off. There have been many examples of that, certainly in the life of this government. Anybody who does not acknowledge that and recognise that, and who is willing to enter into agreements on the basis of a promise, is being foolish.

Another point that needs to be emphasised is that it appears that this has been brought on and rushed through all of a sudden because of a change of view by Senator Fielding, the Family First senator. He is entitled to change his view; people can always change their views. Unfortunately, he is not here to explain what his change of position is and the reasons behind it. It would be desirable for him to do that. At first glance, the changes that have been made are not sufficient to satisfy the Democrats.

The Democrats supported the omission of one schedule in the bill. We also have significant problems with one other schedule in the bill, which for us goes to a core value and which I would have thought was a core value of the Liberal Party—that is, the question of choice. We have just had all this talk from Senator Boswell about the opportunity for small businesses to have collective bargaining. That is something the Democrats support, but the legislation contains a component that says, ‘Collective bargaining, except for anything involving trade unions,’ that the only people who cannot be involved in collective bargaining are unions. It is a blatant anti-union clause. It was not based on any recommendation or finding through any of the processes that led up to this legislation. It was simply the Treasurer, and more widely the government, taking the opportunity to stick one in the neck of the unions.

That in itself is offensive enough, but the fact is that it goes against stated principles of choice—and this is supposed to be all about choice—and against the people it is supposed to help. The whole principle of this component of the legislation is constrained by saying, ‘You can do this, except you can’t do it with unions.’ That is ridiculous and offensive.

There is no doubt that there are other aspects of this legislation which are desired by people in the small business community in general and which they would like to see go through. But there is one person responsible for those measures not going through more than a year ago, and that is Treasurer Costello. All these measures, apart from schedule 1, could have gone through 12 months ago. He is the one who has held them up. There were certainly other avenues for him, even if he did not want to accept and pass those parts that could have been passed straight up. There was certainly ample opportunity for him to consult with others and to ensure that all of these matters, including the section 46 matters, were advanced. Unfortunately, the way in which this Treasurer operates is extraordinarily inflexible. You need only talk to people in the business community, big business or small business, to know the low regard in which he is held, as much for his inflexible attitude as for any of his policy views. This legislation again reflects this very poor process.

I want to quickly make a point about the role of Senator Fielding. I do not know his reason for changing his position. I think he might have made some comments to the media, in which case he is also following the habit of members of this government these days, which is not to bother talking to the parliament about anything and instead holding media conferences.