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

by leave—I am going to outline the procedural position that the Liberals are now adopting in respect of this matter; in fact, you can tell from the sloppy drafting that they have endeavoured to put in place. If you look at motion 136 at (4)(c), they forgot to make a choice and they have left the ‘shall not’ in there. It highlights the abysmal position that they have adopted in respect of how they proceed in this place. They have said:

…a participating member shall (not) be taken to be a member of the committee for the purpose of forming a quorum of the committee if a majority of members of the committee is not present.

The ‘not’ is in brackets. Clearly, that is a choice you have to make. You have to choose which one you decide to take.

In motion 137, you can see that you have actually made a choice. In that one you have said ‘a participating member shall be taken to be a member for the purposes’ and it goes on. You know there is an error there; you will have to fix it up. It highlights what the Liberals have done in respect of these committees. If you go back and look at the last parliament, in the 41st Parliament between 2004 and 2008, you had three select committees: the Senate Select Committee on the Administration of Indigenous Affairs, the Senate Select Committee on the Scrafton Evidence and the Senate Select Committee on Mental Health. Select committees are important for the Senate to deal with special or certain circumstances. They are not a caravanserai for the Liberals to run around the countryside sipping lattes all around the place while they do these things—if they turn up to them. It is about special circumstances which require an inquiry into them.

If you go back and look at the 40th Parliament, there were eight select committees from 2002 to 2004. They dealt with a certain maritime incident, which the Liberals might recall and should hang their heads in shame about; superannuation, an important issue; Medicare; ministerial discretion in migration matters, under section 417 of the Migration Act, which the Liberals made a meal of; the free trade agreement between Australia and the United States of America; the one that the Liberals rolled over on, the Lindeberg grievance—you can hang your heads in shame about that; plus the Scrafton evidence again.

Select committees are for those special circumstances that require extended examination, not the abuse or the hypocrisy which the Liberals are now putting in this place. To put it bluntly: these amendments are hypocritical. They build on the Liberals’ long record of undermining the role of the Senate. They create unnecessary duplication. They are loading senators and, more importantly, the committee staff with even more work at a time when the Senate committees already have a full workload. It is ignoring the way this place works; it is ignoring the principles that have been established in this place. Furthermore, the issues that have been raised in the terms of reference have, in large part, been reviewed and analysed to death.

We do not need a new talkfest around emissions trading on petrol and around broadband. Broadband is currently subject to an open, competitive and extensive tender process with an independent committee reviewing the tender. How much more scrutiny does it need? During the Liberals’ term you did nothing. You sat on about 18 different failed attempts to start it. What we need is action, and Minister Conroy is taking that decisive action. There is a competitive tender in process.

What you are doing is trying to govern from opposition. You cannot do it; you cannot govern from opposition. You really missed the point. When you were in government, the Liberals consistently sought to undermine the role of the Senate by pushing through legislation such as Work Choices. Let me remind you about what you did with Work Choices, in terms of how you undermined the committee process in this place, which you had no mandate to deliver in the first place, and how you refused to refer the legislation to committee. In truth you referred it for nothing more than a cursory examination. The latest attack to try to draw it down, hide it, squirrel it away and bowl it through so there was not proper scrutiny. That is what you did when you were in government. With the big schemes, you ensured you were the smallest target possible.

These new select committees on fuel, energy and the national broadband network will be set up. Each has nominal terms of reference and reporting dates and the representation is essentially stacked in favour of the opposition, the Liberals. What we now have is them taking the position of chair, with of course the ability to appoint a deputy chair. Maybe we could find out what their intentions are with respect to that. Is it the case that they are going to pick the deputy chairs from amongst the Greens? Is it that new system of how select committees are going to work that we have now discovered? They have found out that 30 shekels is a good idea and they are going to use the deputy chair’s position for that role. They are not for that purpose. These are committees for select issues. They are not for the largesse of the Liberal Party; they are for important matters. You will undermine them with the role that you are now using them for.

What the Liberals are in fact doing is establishing a parallel system of Senate committees and rewarding mates with chairing positions. It is the parliamentary equivalent of setting up a new game. You have decided to construct a separate game away from this place, because this is where references are gone through, where the process for the selection of committees takes place. They are brought in here and then they move to the committee structure, which you Liberals recently set up in the last parliament. What you did not do was realise that you might actually have to hand the reins over to a responsible government. What you have then said is, ‘We don’t want to play by the rules anymore, so we’re going to set up a parallel system.’ What you have then put in place is quite frankly an abuse of the Senate process. You have set up four committees. One has already reported under the select committee process. You are now introducing another two. It is literally at the rate of one select committee a month, rather than a reference to the appropriate standing committee for these matters to be dealt with. That is what you argued for when you were in government: that it would be best to have a standing committee so that you could then have both references and legislation dealt with and the standing committees would be able to deal broadly with those issues.

What you have now done is set up a parallel system because you do not like the rules of the existing committee system, which you established. Why? It is patently obvious why you do not like it: because you want to be able to throw your largesse around, you want to be able to use the deputy chairs in a way that they have not been used before. And we might hear about how you are going to do that. You might be able to guarantee us now who are going to be the deputy chairs of the committees. You might be able to say what your intention is with respect to that. You might be able to say as well whether you are going to attend those committees. Clearly, the recognition in this place is that you are going to use your numbers to crunch these committees through. Well, go to them. Will you give a guarantee that, if you do not turn up, if you do not provide the quorums, you will then abandon the committee process at that point? Will you call an end to it and say, ‘We didn’t actually support it in truth; we only set it up so that we could collect the chair’s salary’? If you are serious you will give that ironclad guarantee today that you will not only set up the committee and participate in it but also ensure that you—