George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President, for that guidance. I will not take until then to finish what I have to say. I conclude the first of the two matters. A longer period of time elapsed between the circulation of the draft and the consideration of the report by the Senate in the arrangements that were ultimately made than had been, uncontroversially, informally agreed to among senators in the first place. To suggest otherwise is quite misleading. I know the Australian Labor Party senators had other things on their minds on Monday and Tuesday—and I do not want to make any cheap political points about this matter—but I suspect one might look at the other things Australian Labor Party senators had on their minds on Monday and Tuesday rather than look at any default or defect in the process of the committee for the explanation as to why the opposition has not responded meaningfully to the report.

The second point, briefly, is this: I take umbrage on behalf of the secretariat at the attack that Senator O’Brien has just made on the balance of treatment of the evidence in the report. As is the custom with committee reports, as you know Mr Acting Deputy President, the first draft is prepared by the secretariat in accordance with broad instructions from the chair. That was what occurred in this instance. In my view, the report of the committee, as drafted in the first instance by the secretariat, does reflect a balanced view of the evidence. That is not very surprising because the evidence was not very controversial.

The weight of the evidence was overwhelmingly to the effect, as Senator Chapman said in his contribution in the debate on the report, that the Australian petroleum industry, in the various market levels at which it operates, is a highly competitive industry. All of the credible evidence—not unanimous, but the overwhelming weight of the evidence—pointed to that conclusion. There was in fact only one particular issue on which there was a sharp controversy among witnesses and between senators, and that was the utility of the arrangements that are unique to Western Australia whereby, as a result of state legislation, movements in the retail price of petrol are pegged on a daily basis so that there is a prohibition on the alteration of the board price of petrol not more than once every 24 hours. A number of witnesses praised that scheme; a number criticised it. Their different views are reflected in a balanced and thorough way in the report. That is an issue which has divided government and non-government senators. With the exception of that discrete and relatively small issue, the weight of evidence before the committee was overwhelming, and the weight of the evidence is reflected in the balanced treatment of it given in the report of the committee. I thank the Senate for the indulgence.

Debate (on motion by Senator Parry) adjourned.