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

I want to speak briefly to the motion. With the extra piece of legislation that the minister has added, the motion seeks to require the Senate to consider and vote on 24 pieces of legislation—18 packages, I think, but 24 bills in total. I accept that it is not unusual for a government to try to put through a large pile of legislation in the final couple of sitting weeks of a session, but it is also not unusual for the Democrats to make the point that this is a less than desirable way of doing things. Perhaps it is all just part of that fine old Christmas tradition that we go through this pattern, but I think it is appropriate to once again make the point that this is a legislature, this is a law-making body, and to put through such a large number of pieces of legislation in such a short time frame increases the prospect of bad outcomes.

It is not just an issue of disagreeing with the policy content; it is an issue of ensuring that we get it right. It is more important to get it right than just to get it through. Some of these bills are very significant, as we noted yesterday in debating a related motion which exempted some of the bills from the cut-off and enabled them to be fast-tracked. They are very complex. They are very large. Some of them will have amendments that  are to be seen. Some of them will have very longstanding consequences for the wider community. In that situation it always needs to be said that the process is less than ideal.

The motion requires the Senate to sit relatively late tonight and Thursday night and to sit on Friday as well. I am sure there will also be late-night sittings next week which are yet to be determined. Again, this is not unusual, so in that sense I am not accusing the government of any particular new type of malfeasance, but it is more dangerous now. In previous times when there was an attempt to rush through a large amount of legislation, if there was a general view amongst all non-government parties that a particular bill needed more examination then there was the prospect of deferring it, unless there were very strong grounds for urgency. That possibility is now much reduced, almost to the point of zero. Therefore, the risks are increased when we take actions like this. So it is appropriate to put on the record the Democrats’ continued concern that this is a less than ideal process. It is not a new one, but the risks involved are greater now than they were previously because of the reduction in the checks and balances that the Senate was able to provide in the past.

Question agreed to.