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

Much of what Senator Wong has said I and the Democrats agree with. As I have pointed out a couple of times already in the chamber today, there can be no questioning the breath-taking hypocrisy of the arguments being put forward by the coalition. Across the board, people expect some degree of malleability, shall we say, in the cogency of the arguments that politicians put forward, but I think they do like to see at least some degree of consistency and intellectual honesty. It is impossible not to draw attention to the extraordinary hypocrisy in the assertions being made by the coalition today, in contrast to the arguments they made just about workplace relations laws, let alone everything else, over the last three years.

Frankly, I would be much more comfortable with what the coalition is putting forward on this—and I would suggest they might consider adopting this approach in regard to other legislation and inquiries, because I am sure we will keep seeing the same thing—if they could stand up and say, ‘Look, we accept that we overdid it; we accept that we were wrong.’ I am not here to give political advice, particularly given my own lack of political success at the last election, but I think it would send a message to stand up and say, ‘We accept that we got it wrong in the way we handled the Senate in the last few years and we are turning over a new leaf.’ Then you could much more credibly argue the positions you are now making about the need for greater scrutiny, rather than just asserting carte blanche that this is right in principle with no reference to your own record and statements over the last few years.

Indeed, I know at the declaration of the Senate poll after the last election, for example, Senator Ian Macdonald from the Queensland Liberals—he was the first elected in Queensland—made the point that he thought the previous coalition government did have some arrogance creeping into it. I think you could make that comment publicly a few more times and it might actually benefit the credibility of your arguments, whether you are putting them here or in the community. But the arguments you put forward are your business, I guess.

The other point that needs to be made is that it is one thing to draw attention to the double standards of the position the coalition is now arguing, but the Senate still has to make its decisions on the basis of what is best, of the issue on its merits. We have to examine the legislation and the proposal before us and decide what is best for the Australian community. Senator Wong again rightly referred to the apparent shift in views of a number of members of the coalition in regard to Work Choices being based upon their recognising the politics of this, and that seems to be quite clear.

Up to a point, there is nothing wrong with that because you are recognising that you might have got it wrong in the past. That would be good, if that statement were to accompany things. I would suggest, particularly in regard to the decisions the Senate makes, that making decisions, particularly about what becomes law and what does not, just on the basis of what is the best politics rather than what is the best policy and the best law is not good. It might be good for people’s election chances, but it is not good for the Australian people. We need to do better at making decisions predominantly based on the best policy rather than the best politics.

I am not being too starry eyed here. We have all taken into account the politics of the decision, but the day that that becomes the primary driver of our decisions is the day that the Australian public loses out. That is something we are all guilty of. I could certainly point to, but I shall not, examples in regard to past decisions of some in the Democrats being motivated more by politics than policy and that not leading to the best outcomes.

We are not debating, per se, the merits of the legislation that the government has put forward, but the proposal, in effect, for when the committee examining it will report. That is basically what we are arguing about. There is no disagreement about the committee it will go to; there is no general disagreement about the terms of reference. It is about the reporting date. We have already had that debate to some extent and both Senator Murray and I put on record that we thought that the time frame of 17 March was, while short, at the edges of what is acceptable in regard to a minimum time frame and something that we could wear. That is the reason that we voted the way we did in the earlier debate on this, but we certainly do not believe that it is problematic to have a somewhat longer time frame. I think the suggestion that was made earlier that, if it is not passed in March, it will not be passed till June ignores the fact that we actually have a sitting week in May.

I will now foreshadow, as part of my comments, the amendment that I have circulated to amend the substantive motion here to express the view that it would better enable full consideration of the committee’s report if the Senate were to sit an extra four days prior to the week beginning 12 May, prior to budget week. That is consistent with the comments I made earlier today and, I might say, yesterday about the Democrats’ view that there needs to be more sitting days across the board, to consider not just this one issue but issues across the board.

The point needs to be made repeatedly that this year we have a record low in the number of sitting days that have been scheduled in a non-election year. Indeed, it is extremely low even for an election year. I made that point yesterday. The Senate could have decided yesterday, when it adopted its sitting days for the year, to add some extra days on. It did not choose to do so and indeed nobody else even spoke to issue other than me. I am pleased to see, perhaps a day late, that today at least the coalition is now joining the Democrats in expressing dissatisfaction at the low number of sitting days.

I believe quite strongly that, if the majority of the Senate believes that there are too few sitting days, the Senate should schedule some extra days. That is within the power of the Senate. I understand—I will be corrected if I am wrong; I do not want to put words in the mouths of the coalition senators—that the coalition does not want to set a precedent of the Senate actually doing that. It is a convention that the government of the day, even if it does not have the numbers in the Senate, determines what the Senate sitting days are. Ideally, it does so with consultation, but at the end of the day the government of the day should decide. There is no doubt that it would set a precedent if the Senate said: ‘Well, that’s nice but the majority of us disagree. We will set and schedule more sitting days.’ That would set a precedent. I think it would be a good precedent to set because it would send the very strong signal to whoever is in government that the Senate is independent of the government and will choose for itself the order of its business, how many days it sits and what it is going to do. This is not in any way to capriciously frustrate the government but to ensure that the Senate is less driven by the political imperatives of the government of the day and more driven by a comprehensive examination of what is best overall. I think it would be a good precedent to set for the Senate to move its own motions to add extra sitting days should it so wish.

I understand the coalition does not want to do that. Certainly, I never got support in previous years when I have moved such motions, so the amendment that I foreshadow simply expresses a view that we would benefit from extra sitting days. I hope at least that would be accepted and recognised as a signal to the new government that we could do with some extra sitting days.

Whilst the substantive motion before us is about the reporting date, in effect, of the committee inquiry into this legislation, I do want to make a few points about the issue of mandate regarding the legislation and the broader issue of Work Choices and AWAs. The issue of mandate is one that is repeatedly put forward by all sides selectively to suit whatever they want to do and it is an extremely hollow theory, frankly. It has some very loose value. Certainly, it is worth noting the decisions of the Australian electorate in regard to how they voted. We note that because that is what ends up being reflected in the number of people in this place and the other place and who is in government. But to claim an automatic imprimatur for rubber-stamping any piece of legislation on the basis of an election result, even on an issue that was pivotal to the election, as I agree Work Choices was, is really stretching the idea of a mandate to the boundaries of intellectual honesty.

If you want a solid mandate, an incontrovertible mandate, on a specific issue then you put it to a referendum or a plebiscite and ask people. There is no other way you can credibly say that the Australian people support this specific issue. You can quote every opinion poll you like. I think the interchangeableness of the terms ‘AWA’ and ‘Work Choices’ that is being employed by the Labor government demonstrates that. I understand why they are doing that. It is good politics to do that. There is some accuracy in it, but there is some inaccuracy in it because AWAs and Work Choices are not synonymous. The particular type of AWAs that were adopted in the Work Choices legislation were unacceptable and extreme. I believe they were strongly opposed by the Australian government, they were certainly categorically opposed by the Democrats and we remain categorically opposed to Work Choices AWAs.

But AWAs in a different form, with a very strong safety net via the no disadvantage test, have been in place since 1996—heavily amended by the Senate and the Democrats in particular. Of course, the government that put them in place was re-elected in 1998, 2001 and 2004, with those AWAs as part of our workplace laws. It was only when it removed that no disadvantage test, bastardising, in my view, the intent behind AWAs, and removed a lot of the protections that were there—they were not perfect protections, but they certainly were reasonably good protections that could have been strengthened further—that it ran into political problems and, I might say, a lot of Australians ran into personal problems, having been subjected to them. But it is not synonymous: getting rid of Work Choices does not necessarily mean scrapping AWAs.

That does not mean we cannot do so, and Labor is in effect replacing one type of individual statutory agreement with another, interim, individual statutory agreement—that is all very good, and you have different labels and everybody can use them to sell their own messages. That is fine, and I am not expressing a view one way or another about the policy intent; I am simply saying that the mandate argument only goes so far. Getting rid of Work Choices, I think, is widely supported. Whether or not you can use that to say that therefore the Senate should rubber-stamp everything the government puts forward as long as the government says, ‘This is getting rid of Work Choices,’ is another matter.

A lot of people wanted to get rid of Work Choices; I do not think there is much doubt about that. Whether there is widespread agreement about what they want to replace it with is very much more in doubt, I think. The vast majority of Australians have an opinion about whether they are for or against Work Choices; there is far less certainty and clarity about what they see as desirable to take its place. In one sense you could say that, if you were ripping up Work Choices, all you would be doing, if you simply repealed the Work Choices law that was passed, would be going back to the pre-Work Choices laws. That is not what Labor is doing—and I am not saying they should do that; I do not believe they should. I am simply saying it is not as simple as just saying you can claim an automatic mandate. It is intellectually dishonest to say so, even though it may be intelligent politics.

Returning to the issue before us—the committee enquiry—the Democrats have already stated that we think 31 days or so to inquire and report is a short amount of time but not inappropriately short for a bill such as this, which is not massively complex. Having said that, we do not think it would be harmful for the time frame to be somewhat longer, as the coalition is proposing, particularly if the Senate put in place extra sitting days, as we believe should occur. As yet I have not read the bill in question, but my understanding is that it has a start-up date past the end of May anyway. So whether it is passed in May or passed in March—if it does get passed, which is a big ‘if’, I might say—my understanding is it still will not come into effect till later down the track. So it will not affect in any way the number of people who are put on AWAs or not put on AWAs.

There are very valid points to be made by the Labor government in pointing to the hypocrisy of the coalition, but I think their argument with regard to the mandate and the suggestion of expeditious rubber-stamping is somewhat thinner. As we move through the process of actually debating the legislation, I do think that point needs to be made more continually. The Labor Party have won the argument on Work Choices, and they were right. On the issue of Work Choices they were joined by the Democrats, the Greens and pretty much everybody except some within the Liberals. They won the argument and they won the election. They have got government, and I would think there is little doubt that that was probably the key factor in the election—not the only factor but the pivotal one. So you won your political argument and you won your election.

We are now dealing with what becomes the law. I am not naive enough to suggest that people should now put aside all political arguments and political point-scoring opportunities, but let us not allow that to dominate the decision the Senate finally makes. Let the Senate make its final decision on the basis of the merits of the legislation that is put forward and the evidence that is put forward in the Senate committee process. Score your points based on that; do not predetermine your position based on continuing the argument from the last election.

Frankly, I do not actually expect that to happen. I think that is a plea that will be widely ignored by all sides. But nonetheless I make it because I do think that would benefit the Australian public and our economy. We are all feverishly scrambling to emphasise economic responsibility and the importance of making sure our economy does not go south and more Australians do not get hurt by some difficult economic times ahead. So let us keep that in mind and match that rhetoric with reality when it comes to considering this and all other legislation.

In case it was not picked up the first time around, I foreshadow the amendment I have circulated to the motion. In effect, we already voted on that. As I said, the Democrats believe 17 March is an adequate minimum time frame, but we do not believe that the sky will come crashing down if that time frame is longer.