Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

No, given that it is more appropriate that the time be used for speaking. Through this motion the government seeks to foreshorten debate through the day on a range of bills. What the time allotment does is ensure that bills that would otherwise take considerable time to deal with are going to be dealt with very shortly with a guillotine motion, and then we will move through each bill. That means that people will not be able to speak on bills that they might wish to speak on and then deal with them in the committee stage in an adequate way.

The government has mismanaged the program again. It seems to be more in sorrow than anything else that I am back here again complaining about the government’s mismanagement and its inability to deal with the legislative program in a realistic way to ensure that people can deal with their legislation and allow senators to move amendments and deal adequately with the committee stage of bills. This government has form in this. Since this government has got control of the Senate from 1 July 2005, it is not the first time they have moved a guillotine motion. They have also moved gags. They have moved the guillotine motion between five and six times—I think this might be the sixth time. I am not going to be hypocritical about the Labor Party. In government it moved similar motions, but it stands in stark contrast to what this government is doing.

This government is ensuring that proper scrutiny in this Senate is not able to take place on a range of legislation at both the second reading and the committee stages, not only in using the guillotine, as they have, but also in the way they now address the committee processes where otherwise time would be able to be utilised in examining a bill in a Senate committee. This government has now collapsed the Senate committees into one committee. They have then taken a process driven by their own need to ensure that Senate committees are foreshortened and we only have a reference for a short time to deal with the committee stage of a bill. There is then inadequate time for proper consideration of the Senate committee before bringing the bill forward to the Senate. In compacting the program, they have ensured that adequate time would not be provided for the committee stage of a bill to deal with the range of amendments.

The government has not only taken that process; there are also a number of other abuses. Not only do we now have short inquiries and short references of committees, but in question time we are now averaging about four or five questions, whereas before 1 July we averaged six or seven questions. They have also ensured that estimates are reduced by up to eight days. Today we have seen the government put out its estimates program for next year—with the same outcome. When you start to pile one Senate abuse upon another you get to a position whereby you have managed to ensure that the proper scrutiny by this Senate of bills and legislation and of references by senators is simply curtailed. You are then turning this place into nothing more than a sausage factory where you grind legislation through.

In the last two weeks the opposition has ensured that there would be ample time. We have given up time on Tuesday nights and Thursday nights, and we sat last Friday. This week we again sat late on Tuesday night, and we will clearly sit late tonight, to ensure that the legislative program is being dealt with. But you are still not managing the program in a fair and effective way to ensure proper scrutiny of bills. That is an abuse of the Senate and you continue commit it again and again.

The Prime Minister’s, words—and I have used his words a couple of times—confirm that Mr John Howard cannot be trusted. When the Queensland Senate result was confirmed—in other words, he got control of the Senate—he said:

I want to assure the Australian people that the government will use its majority in the new Senate very carefully, very wisely and not provocatively.

We intend to do the things we’ve promised the Australian people we would do, but we don’t intend to allow this unexpected but welcome majority in the Senate to go to our heads.

Five days out from 1 July he said:

I am not going to allow this unexpected majority to go to my head. I want to make that clear. I am not going to do that because that would be disrespectful to the public and it will be disrespectful to the robust nature of the Senate even with the coalition majority.

That was reported in the Sydney Morning Herald on 25 June 2005.

But after taking control of the Senate, the government is doing the range of things I have talked about, procedurally and administratively curtailing the operation of Senate and using the guillotine again to ensure that its legislative program is pushed through the Senate with very little scrutiny. They leave the tougher bills until the end of the program so that those tougher bills, that would otherwise have longer debates, have that debate curtailed. There will be only a short debate on those.

I have complained about the processes of the government a number of times and it is not going to persuade those on the other side. They are going to dutifully fall in line with the government, pass this motion and ensure that it will have its desired effect of reducing proper scrutiny by the Senate. The government will say that it finds time being wasted on committee debates. That is a matter for the government to manage by ensuring that its legislation is good legislation. This government has not been implementing good law. In my portfolio area they have brought bills forward, amended them and then amended them again on the floor, soaking up considerable time which would otherwise be utilised for debates. We now find that we have to spend longer in the committee stage to deal with those issues.

But the time is simply not available, because this government is ensuring that important bills such as the anti-money laundering bill will have very little time available and, similarly, the wheat marketing bill. Unfortunately, the longer I speak will also mean less time for those bills, so I will not go on for my full 20 minutes, as I indicated, because it will foreshorten the debate that people can have on important legislation. It is important that this point be made, though, because this government is abusing its majority and it needs to be reined in. This government needs to stick to the promise Mr John Howard made to the Australian public and this Senate that it would use its majority carefully and respectfully and ensure that the full processes of the Senate would be followed. It is saying one thing in the media and in public, but the processes in here do not reflect that and it should be shamed for it.