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

I get only one go to speak to this issue, as I understand it, so I will try to cover the whole issue—that is, both the amendment and the substantive motions. For the Democrats the big issue is not even which committee the Medibank Private Sale Bill 2006 goes to, although I think that is a valid question. The issue for us is the reporting date requirement, which is that we have to report before the end of the year.

The Democrats proposal, which is contained in the report, is that we have a report-back date in March. Frankly, the only argument for the bill going to the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration rather than the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs is that the finance committee does not have much on but the community affairs committee has stacks on. That would be a valid reason if the bill had to go through before the end of the year, but it does not. The government’s own reason for urgency, which is contained in this report, states that ‘the government has announced its intention to sell Medibank Private Ltd through a share market float in 2008’. Why on earth is that a justification for having to ram this through the parliament before the end of 2006?

There is no urgency, and the suggestion by the minister that, somehow, this is just some sort of accounting measure is ludicrous. You might as well say that all the media reforms we have just debated were really just about business matters and that that bill should have gone to the finance committee or the economics committee or the corporations committee because it was just about business decisions, as though it would have had no impact on the media and the communications landscape.

To suggest that such a major change to the ownership of Medibank Private, the profit status and all these sorts of things have no implications for health policy is ludicrous. To try to run the argument that this is just some arcane accounting measure gives an indication of how little attention the government is paying to the potential consequences for the private health sector and the health sector in general as a result of these actions.

The Democrats believe that the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs is the better committee to refer the bill to—and, frankly, we can all substitute people across to the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration anyway; it is a bit of an unnecessary process—but the real problem is the reporting date. That goes to the big problem that has now become apparent, continually, with this committee process, as Senator George Campbell noted in his remarks. This may seem arcane to people, but I hope there is recognition that it is important. The Medibank Private example is classic. The government is trying to railroad this through. The people are being railroaded in their own backbench. They are trying to railroad it through—to push it all through in a rush before any opposition is built up and we get another Snowy that gets the thing overturned. That is what they are trying to do. By voting for these ridiculously short inquiries time after time, coalition senators are gagging and railroading themselves. Frankly, I am getting a bit tired of their continually voting for these ridiculously short reporting dates and then, when we get into the committee, they sit there and ask, ‘How the hell are we going to deal with this in such a short time frame?’ You have the power to fix the problem; we don’t. It is your responsibility. How about you take some?

Another classic example—which is even worse—is the copyright legislation, which was referred to a committee before it was introduced into the parliament. We were being asked whether we supported its referral without knowing what was in it. There was a statement of reasons attached for the urgency—which was better than what we have had in the past, which was basically no reason at all—and the purpose of the bill but not the reasons for the referral. That legislation was introduced half an hour ago in the House of Representatives, and the reporting date is 10 November, three weeks away, two weeks of which are sitting weeks or estimates committees weeks. The only non-sitting week is next week, so that committee will have no opportunity to have a public hearing.

Another aspect is that, when we are given half an hour to decide whether or not a bill needs to go to a committee, there is the potential for a committee to get a bill that nobody thinks needs examining or to get a bill that does need examining but where the committee has a ridiculously short time frame to do it in. It is a ludicrous scenario. It is the ministers who are creating this situation. The committee has no say in it, in effect, so this is not a criticism of the committee. You also have to recognise that, with the copyright bill, it is not just about what is in it; it is what is not in it. From what I can tell from what has been just introduced, what is not in the legislation is the proposal to remove the one per cent cap on commercial radio fees paid to performers—copyright holders. That was promised to be part of the balanced changes to the fair use changes. That is not in the bill. The fair use changes are. I do not know whether that is a big issue but to give you half an hour to decide not just to look at the bill but to try to determine whether something is not in the bill—and then to give a ridiculously short time frame to examine it—is simply ludicrous. The process shows contempt for the Senate, but much more importantly it is contempt for the public and democracy. (Time expired)