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

Mr President, I congratulate you on your new position. I want to make a short contribution on the Democrats motion. We will not be opposing it but I want to make a particular point: the strength and test of a government is its ability to allow dissent. In this instance, the government has demonstrated its inability to allow matters to be aired, to be scrutinised by the Senate and to be dealt with by the Senate, particularly where the government may fundamentally disagree.

Senator Bartlett has encapsulated what is the ability of the Senate—the ability to scrutinise, to look at the issues and to have debate in the committees, which then report back to the Senate. That is all that Senator Bartlett has asked for. He has not asked for a view from the government about the veracity or otherwise of the particular piece of legislation. Senator Bartlett understands that there may be differing views in the Senate on the bill and the difficulties that might surround how it might be progressed. Senator Bartlett accepts that.

This is the difficulty that I see with what this government has turned the Selection of Bills Committee into. We now have a situation where the government refers bills that it thinks the committee should look at, it accepts references—even, sometimes, when we may indicate as part of the Selection of Bills Committee that we do not have a view on whether the bill should be referred—and it denies references, based on the grounds that it thinks that the matter has already been looked into. I suspect that its argument in this instance will be that the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has looked into this issue significantly and therefore no further work needs to be done. In this instance, there is a difference. This is about a legislative outcome and how that would be progressed. It is a different issue, in truth. The government simply rejects bills that it thinks should not be referred, because it wants them dealt with quickly in the chamber, or it sends them off for a short inquiry.

We now have a situation which is a far cry from where we used to be. The position which we adopted as a general principle in this place was that, within the usual confines, senators should be able to allow bills to be referred to committees for inquiry and examination. That does not predetermine the position that any party might adopt when the bill comes back here for debate—if it were to come back for debate, because sometimes they do not. The government has now sought to exert control over the outcome—and this is a poor outcome for the Senate more broadly.

The beauty of this place is that it allows debate and it allows committees to examine matters. Part of the ability of the committee structure is to allow scrutiny, to throw light into dark corners and to allow us to have arguments—and not to have them in here. That is part of the position as well, because, if you will not allow the committees to do work such as that which Senator Bartlett has put forward, the debates will come back into the chamber. Senators understand that, if they want matters to be progressed, they will have to progress them in here. We will then lose more time dealing with these issues on the floor of the chamber, instead of allowing the Senate committees to deal with them. I am also concerned about that. By not allowing the committees to do their work, more business is generated in here. You will then complain that not enough government business is being done. May I remind you that it may, in fact, be by your own hand.