Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I was surprised that the debate on the committee report on petrol prices in Australia continued. When Senator Brandis sought leave to continue his remarks, I thought the debate would come on on another day at another time, perhaps on a Thursday evening as is normally the case. I thought that was the intention of the motion. We have since heard Senator Fielding and Senator Joyce on the report, and now we have heard Senator Chapman on it. I understand that at the end of my contribution Senator Brandis will seek leave to make a short statement in relation to the report. On the basis that it is a short statement we will grant it, but it is quite unusual for the mover of a motion to seek leave to continue his or her remarks to then seek to speak in the debate. It may be that Senator Brandis was not aware of the standing orders in that regard. It may be that he simply wanted—and thought it was available to him to do so—to speak later in the debate, to speak as a speaker in reply rather than as an initiator of the debate. Nevertheless, we will give him an opportunity to make a short statement.

The Senate should note that the opposition and Senator Murray of the Australian Democrats have no respect for this report. The Labor senators’ dissenting report says:

To the extent that we have been able to scrutinise this report, we feel that the report is shallow and self-serving and reflects only the view of the committee Chair and perhaps Liberal Party Senators on the Committee. This report is a report that Non-government Senators cannot endorse.

Non-government Senators are appalled in the selective and misleading use of evidence particularly while other quite compelling evidence has been totally ignored. Of great concern to Non-government Senators is that because of the truncated timeframe available to Opposition Senators a full dissenting report cannot be prepared.

Despite the inquiry stretching over five months, the chair provided Non Government Senators with less than 24 hours to consider the contents of the Chair’s draft prior to its approval by the government-dominated committee.

We make further comments and highlight the fact that the chair himself was critical of witnesses providing evidence to the committee on the morning of the hearing just prior to their examination. We agree that it is inappropriate for committees to be confronted with a written presentation on the day that witnesses appear before a committee, but it is worse that the deliberative report of the committee found its way into the hands of the committee less than 24 hours before the meeting at which the final determination of the contents was to be made, particularly at the end of the year when senators have a variety of pressing matters to attend to.

I say that is the non-government senators position, because Senator Murray, as I understand it, has also presented some comments. I have not seen the official presented copy but, as I understand it, this is what he said:

As a member of the Committee, a copy of the Chair’s Draft was sent to my email address on Tuesday 5 December 2006 at 11h41. I had seen no earlier drafts. The Committee meeting to approve the Chair’s Report was held at 08h30 on Wednesday 6 December, 21 hours later.

As this report is a broad reference, and was not dictated by a legislative timetable, there is nothing to have prevented it being tabled later, out-of-session.

Later he said:

I have no opinion on the Chair’s Report because I have not had time to read it or refect on it.

The contempt with which I and other members of the Committee have been treated reflects poorly on the Chair. It indicates an unhealthy and unwise attitude.

It is really concerning that Labor and Democrat senators have to deal with these matters in reports of the committee. As our dissenting report says, this inquiry had been running for five months. The arrival of the chair’s draft less than 24 hours before a deliberative meeting at which the final decision on the report was rammed through by a government majority tells you that there was no intention for there to be consultation about the contents of the draft, and indeed the draft was the final report to which no changes were considered by the committee.

In relation to certain aspects of the report, the opposition draws attention to the fact that on a matter which impacts on the pricing of petrol in Perth, Western Australia—it may indeed be an example to be considered elsewhere—critical evidence about the scheme was omitted from the chair’s draft and therefore the final report. We refer to this in our dissenting report. Evidence was given by impartial bodies, such as the Royal Automobile Club of Western Australia. They made what I would have considered to be impartial statements on the petrol price watch system in Western Australia and its impact on petrol pricing. But their statements could not find their way into the report because that would have been inconvenient to the chair’s view that the only thing that should be considered was the ACCC’s idea about that report, which they conceded was based only on comments made—evidence which was not based on particular facts but attributable to people’s views about the Western Australian scheme.

If reports of this committee are to be given credibility they have to be seen to have been properly considered. There has to be an opportunity for contemplation of the contents and debate. It may be that in the end a majority takes the view that the draft is right, and for good reason. It may be, for political reasons, that the draft does not express what others might put in it. Nevertheless, there would be opportunity for those who disagree to prepare a proper dissenting report. When you look at the timetable that Labor and Democrat senators were given to prepare a dissenting report on a matter which was not the subject of pressing legislation, you find that we had slightly more than 24 hours following that meeting, despite all that was going on with other reports to be considered and bills being brought through this chamber. We had slightly more than 24 hours to present a document to this chamber.

It is clear from Senator Murray’s comments that he is appalled by what has taken place. I understand that Senator Joyce did not endorse the report. I believe he has indicated that at the time of the convening of the meeting of the committee he had not had an opportunity to read the committee’s report. I understand from what he has said that he has tabled other comments. I have not had an opportunity to see them and do not know what they say. This is an entirely unsatisfactory situation for members of the committee to have to deal with. I really think that arising from this there ought to be contemplation about appropriate procedure and a timetable set up, or at least a guide for chairs of committees on how they handle these matters.

On occasions—for example, because of government insistence on dealing with legislation at a particular time—there will be great pressure on committees in presenting reports, but this is not a case of legislation causing such pressure. No legislation arises from this report. All that arises from this report is a series of views being promulgated, purportedly by the committee but in fact by the chair and perhaps some of the members who, I understand, had not even read all of it—or at least some of them had not—but supported the view.

I have never had to sign a dissenting report like this in my time in the Senate. I hope I never have to do so again. I think that the chair of the committee needs to have a good, hard look at how the committee proceedings are handled. I am not normally a member of this committee; I was a member for this inquiry. (Time expired)