Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens will be supporting the motion for the reporting date of 17 March. We were very deeply concerned about the reporting date of 3 March as first proposed by the government. We thought that was an abuse of the process. We believe that the reporting date of 17 March will give us enough time to discuss the legislation that we all knew was coming and that the government did foreshadow. It is so surprising, although I guess we should not be surprised, to see that the opposition is now all of a sudden really keen on having a thorough Senate process and a thorough committee process—and there are three more proposals soon to come before us to set up committees that they want to control—when they changed the committee system in the first place so that the government could control it. Now there is a different government and all of a sudden the now opposition want to change the committee process. For 2½ years the former government systematically abused the Senate process, abused the committee process and treated this place like a sausage factory. All of sudden they are throwing their arms up in the air and saying, ‘It’s not fair. The government are abusing the process to try to push through legislation that actually does away with Work Choices.’

The government was very clear about bringing this legislation in. They went to the people with it. The opposition said, ‘Yeah, Work Choices is dead,’ but it seems like it is in name only. They’re just going to create another name for it. The same people who dreamed up Work Choices are still there and still pushing it. It is clear that Work Choices is not dead; they are just going to use another name for it. This is not about a proper Senate process; this is about the opposition not wanting to see AWAs go. They want to see them there as long as possible. If you were genuine about using the Senate process then why did you refer this in the way that you did? Why not use the selection of bills process that you were so keen on last time? This is just about frustrating the government’s AWA process and reform of IR. The Australian community will be in no doubt about what the opposition is trying to achieve—that is, to frustrate the reform process. That is what this is about. It is not about all of a sudden having a road to Damascus experience about how important committee review is.

The Northern Territory intervention was supposedly at the time the most significant government package on Aboriginal reform ever seen in Australia. There was a one-day Senate hearing. The then government did not even call the authors of the report which supposedly kicked it off in the first place. That is how serious the then government—the now opposition—was about using the committee process and having fair review of legislation. What a joke that only a couple of months down the track they are back in this place all of a sudden championing the committee process. Get real. Everybody can see through this, and the Australian public will see through it. All you are trying to do is stop the AWA reform process. All the opposition are currently trying to do is to stop the review and reform of the IR process. Everybody can see through that. The Greens will be supporting the amendment as proposed by the government to have a review and to complete the committee process by 17 March. We believe that the people of Australia have been looking forward to this legislation coming in. They will be able to read about it, able to get their submissions in on time and able to appear before the committee during that process because they have been primed to the fact that this is happening. We do not normally support a review process of just one month but in this instance we think it is particularly important because we believe that the public of Australia have voted on and are keen to get rid of AWAs. That is what this legislation is about. They will have time to get their comments in and we will get time to review this legislation.