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

The Democrats have serious concerns about the date of 14 August that the Manager of Government Business in the Senate has put forward, which the observant amongst you would realise is next Tuesday. That is, frankly, an absurdly short time frame. The Democrats’ view is that we should be seeking to have the committee report back on the first sitting date in September, which, off the top of my head, I think is 10 or 11 September, when we come back after the APEC meeting.

The water bills, as we all know, are very significant, hugely historic in lots of ways and not necessarily something that the Democrats oppose—certainly not in principle. We have made that very clear publicly a number of times. I do not know how many times I can say this in this place: we have a responsibility to do the job right. I know the Prime Minister has his political agenda and I know that state governments have their political agendas; the farming lobby and the environment lobby have their political agendas. The Senate’s job is to make sure that we look at what is actually going to become law.

Let us look at the reality of what the government’s proposal will mean. These incredibly significant pieces of legislation deal with the Murray-Darling Basin. As we all know, we have these bills because the Murray-Darling Basin is in crisis; it is at an absolute, total crisis point. If serious and effective action is not taken very promptly, that damage will be permanent. That does not mean that if we do not get these bills passed by next week that damage will be permanent. The prospects of saving the situation are dramatically enhanced if we do it right and do not pass them until September, in one month’s time.

It is ludicrous to suggest that that would be the case, given that this has dragged on all year. As we know, it came out of absolutely nowhere when the Prime Minister made his grand announcement. I will not speculate on his motivation because, whatever that was, there is no doubt that action needed to happen. So he made his grand announcement out of nowhere, as we all know, without consultation even with cabinet, Treasury, or a whole lot of people in the government, let alone anywhere else, saying that this was crucial and that we needed to surge ahead. Here we are in August and we are just now getting some legislation. Even today, we do not know if the New South Wales government is now supportive or not.

I am not commenting on any of those disputes and differences of views; what I am commenting on is the Senate’s responsibility to get it right. It is totally ludicrous to suggest that we can examine this legislation and hear from the stakeholders, from the people who will be directly affected, from the state governments, from the farmers, from the environmental experts, from the scientists and from affected Indigenous people in this space of time.

The reality of this proposal from the government, if it goes ahead, will be that we hold a Senate committee hearing tomorrow. In less than 24 hours time, people will be expected to come and give evidence on these bills—people who do not even know that they are invited yet, people who do not even know what time they are going to be appearing, people who have had less than 24 hours to provide a written submission. They are all meant to suddenly get to Canberra and provide informed opinion to the Senate so we can assess whether we are getting this right. Can anyone here credibly tell me that that is a responsible process? Of course it is not. It is grossly irresponsible. It is a dereliction of our most fundamental duty.

Just yesterday, or the day before, the Prime Minister—quite rightly, in my view—slammed Queensland Premier Peter Beattie for railroading through all the changes to local government and not consulting with the people who will be directly affected, and not giving them a chance to have their say. I am paraphrasing him here, but that is basically what he said. Yet, here we are doing it. We are doing it to the people of the Northern Territory and we are doing it to the Aboriginal people of the Northern Territory. There is no opportunity for them to have their say on the massive changes being imposed on them. We will not get to hear the views of the people directly affected, let alone take advantage of their expertise.

And we are doing it again with the water bills and the Murray-Darling Basin. It is a huge, incredibly important area. This is major, groundbreaking legislation that is a huge shift in how things are dealt with. It has serious constitutional questions to consider and address, and there are obvious differences of views about how it is going to operate in terms of the key stakeholders. And we are meant to just have a hearing tomorrow. We have just come from a meeting of the committee and we are still sorting out the witnesses for the hearing. It is just ludicrous. This is what this government has reduced the Senate to by grossly misusing its Senate power. It is a fundamental breach of the Prime Minister’s promise after the last election when he promised he would not abuse the Senate power. He has done it time and time again and he is doing it now. (Time expired)