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

Sitting on the crossbench, as the Australian Democrats have done for over 30 years, you get a different perspective. The Democrats are unique as a political party in that we have always been in a position of permanent opposition or, if you like, separate from the continuing gladiatorial contest between the two major parties. When you sit on the crossbench and look across at the government and opposition of the day making their accusations, it is sometimes pretty hard to remember which side is on which bench. The script tends to be the same; it is just that the people swap from one side to the other and then make the accusations in reverse across the chamber.

Much of what we have heard from the Liberal opposition today matches what the Labor opposition used to say, and much of the defence and counterattack from the Labor government matches what the previous Liberal government used to say. I think that is why we get continual assertions from both sides about dishonesty and hypocrisy. Broadly speaking, people are right: there is a lot of hypocrisy. But what the role of cross-benchers has always been, and needs to continue to be even once the Democrats are gone, is to cut through that hypocrisy and cut to the basic matters.

I should make clear to the Senate, and anyone else who has been following this debate, that the Democrats did not oppose the coalition’s referrals of most of the bills that have been deemed to be budget related when we voted on that earlier today. Whilst we probably felt that some could have been dealt with next week, I think the general principle that, if a matter is complex, if it is fairly recent, and you have to make a decision about whether or not it becomes law, it is best to examine it properly, look at all the consequences and, most importantly, give the community and those with expertise in the community the opportunity to have input so that the Senate can make an informed decision. I accept that. Even though it is clearly inconvenient to the government of the day, whoever they are, to have to delay these things, it is valid to properly examine them for a reasonable length of time. The Democrats’ concern about some of the committee referrals that occurred this morning was that, in some cases, that was not for a reasonable length of time, that the attempt was being made to refer other bills that were not budget related for excessive amounts of time, clearly to try to prevent them from being addressed at all in this chamber. It is a real travesty that that was voted through by the coalition using their numbers—in most cases, I note, with the support of Senator Fielding.

The point needs to be made, nonetheless, that it is grossly absurd for the coalition to now argue that they showed some commitment to transparency in the committee process when they were in government. The public pick up on this. You can throw your misleading statistics around about having a record number of bills referred to committees in your first year of having control of this place but, as has been rightly pointed out, the coalition did misuse and abuse their majority in this place. We are seeing the final throes of that in this fortnight. Quite clearly, one of the key reasons why you lost government was that you abused your majority and pushed things through without proper scrutiny, thus allowing unpopular and extreme legislation to get through because it was not modified and examined properly, and also that people recognise and can see grotesque arrogance and perversion of due process when it happens.

It is not whether you send off 10 or 100 bills; it is whether or not the referrals are appropriate and whether people get the chance to examine them. We had Senator Kemp giving the example of the taxation legislation. Yes, it was examined by four committees over a prolonged period of time—not for a year, but for about six months—and the coalition kicked and screamed and whinged about it all the way along. They did not say, ‘Yeah, sure, great idea’; they complained every inch of the way. And if they had had the numbers, as they did later on, the tax package would have got the same treatment that Work Choices got, that Telstra got, that the Murray-Darling water package got and that the Northern Territory emergency intervention legislation got: it would have been pushed through in the space of a week. That is what would have happened. And you would have kicked and screamed if anyone had suggested otherwise and said we were holding up budget measures and preventing the government from implementing their mandate. We all know the arguments but we all can sniff hypocrisy when it is being put forward. And that is what is being done on this occasion. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.