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

I want to speak briefly to this motion, particularly part (b). I am obviously not objecting to the Manager of Government Business introducing a bill; he can introduce whatever bill he likes, but part (b) is to exempt the legislation from the cut-off order so that it can be considered during this period of sittings, which, as we have just been debating, means considering it during this week. It is amongst the list of 30 bills that was covered by the previous motion. I want to speak to it as a single motion just to reinforce the point that I was making previously.

I am not passing comment on whether the legislation is a good bill or a bad bill, not least because I have not seen it yet; it has not been introduced. I have just been given a 30-second run-down by my colleague Senator Stott Despoja about what may or may not be in the legislation and some of the issues that may or may not be raised. Obviously, being the Australian Crime Commission Amendment Bill 2007, it deals with criminal law. Some important issues of due process could be involved. However completely sure the government are that they are doing the right thing—that it is fabulous stuff and that it is completely necessary to introduce a bill and exempt it from the cut-off forthwith so that it has to be debated in the space of a couple of days—this legislation contains issues that could well require some degree of more careful consideration, if only to ensure that the stated policy intent is actually what will occur and that there are no unintended consequences.

That is the aspect of pushing things through this chamber that is often not given the focus it deserves. It is not just about those of us in the opposition parties saying, ‘We don’t like this bill being rushed through because we don’t like this bill or the policy behind it.’ Sure, that happens from time to time. Often we fully agree with the stated intent, but we are not sure whether what is being put forward will achieve those ends. Even more frequently, we are concerned that, alongside achieving those ends, there may be some other unintended consequences because it has not been thought through enough, we have not had enough time to examine it and we particularly have not had enough time to hear from people in the community with expertise. All knowledge and wisdom does not reside in this Senate chamber, although we all may talk like it does from time to time. There are many people in the community who have expertise in a range of areas, including those covered by this legislation. To not allow ourselves the opportunity to properly hear from those people in order to ensure that the public—the people who we are meant to be doing all this for—are not inadvertently negatively affected by what we are putting through is a dangerous process to follow for good public policy. I raise that concern on behalf of the Democrats.

The cut-off itself is a creation of the Democrats and of my predecessor from Queensland, Senator Michael Macklin, back in the 1980s. It was agreed to back then by the Liberal opposition as a good idea and as a bit of a safeguard against this sort of thing happening unless good enough reasons are put forward as to why it is desirable. Oftentimes good enough reasons are put forward. Maybe there are good reasons on this occasion and the minister thought they were so overpoweringly obvious that he did not need to outline them, but I think it would be beneficial for those reasons to be outlined before the Senate gives that open-ended tick, even though I accept that, in effect, we already have with the previous motion being passed.