Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to get a copy of that report. I note that in the report there was an inability of the committee to come to an agreement on the move I made to have the Guarantee Scheme for Large Deposits and Wholesale Funding Appropriation Bill 2008 referred to the Economics Committee. In the absence of that decision, I foreshadow that I will move:

At the end of the motion, add “and, in respect of the Guarantee Scheme for Large Deposits and Wholesale Funding Appropriation Bill 2008, the provisions of the bill be referred to the Economics Committee for inquiry and report”.

I am moving this amendment, because we are being asked to deal with the legislation this afternoon. I believe that it is such an important piece of legislation that it does deserve an inquiry.

One of the things that distressed me about the three years of the government dominance of the Senate between 2004 and 2007 was that it seemed that referrals to committee tended to become inversely proportional in importance to the significance of the legislation. Here we have an extremely significant piece of legislation that is aimed to have the public become guarantors of loans made by banks overseas. The committee could not make a decision as to whether or not there should be a Senate inquiry into the matter.

At the same time, where requests were made, all the other matters were effectively referred. The freedom of information amending legislation, which I think is important, and the Tax Agent Services Bill, which I think is also important, were referred immediately—the latter to the Economics Committee—and it is beyond me to see why the committee could not recommend that the guarantee for the bank funding bill could not also have been referred. I am therefore moving, as an amendment to the motion, that the bill be referred to the Economics Committee.