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

I might ask the opposition: is it 63 months? How long does the deed of guarantee stay in place? Would the opposition be amenable to me adjusting this sunset clause to coincide with the expiration of the deed of guarantee from the date of the commencement of this legislation, or are we really facing an endless guarantee for borrowings overseas by the institutions?

Question negatived.

Well, there was no support for that, but I will now move Greens amendment (2) on sheet 5672:

(2)    Page 2 (after line 28), at the end of the bill, add:

7 Minister to make statement to Parliament

        (1)    If the Minister borrows money in accordance with subsection 6(1) then the Minister or the Minister’s representative must, within 3 days of taking that action, make an explanatory statement to each House of the Parliament.

        (2)    If either House of the Parliament is adjourned so that it would not otherwise meet within the time referred to in subsection (1), the Presiding Officer, shall summon that House to meet, in spite of anything contained in the resolution of adjournment of that House.

        (3)    In this section, Presiding Officer in relation to a House of the Parliament means the Presiding Officer of that House within the meaning of the Parliamentary Presiding Officers Act 1965, or the person who is deemed to be the Presiding Officer of that House for the purpose of that Act

I add, again, that this bill is in fact two pages. The description of this amendment is ‘accountability to parliament’ because that indeed is what it is. This amendment to the bill will ensure that parliament—although it is disempowered to do anything about it—is at least recalled in the event of the executive, or the minister, being required to borrow money from consolidated revenue or in some other form to pay for a loan to a bank which the bank has defaulted on, and all of the consequent turmoil that would come from that. This is simply to involve parliament, at least to the extent of being able to debate the situation were that to occur.

This is not a frivolous amendment; it is a very important democratic check on the executive. We could have the situation where a bank defaulted in December and parliament was not due to sit until February or March, with $100 million, $500 million or indeed billions of dollars or tens of billions of dollars being required from the public purse to make good that default—with quite extraordinary public turmoil and alarm about it. I think it would be most settling to have parliament recalled to deal with that matter and to support the executive if it were doing the right thing.

I am not here to support the idea that the executive ought to be the arbiter of what happens in all national situations and that the parliament simply legislate to facilitate that—in other words, for itself to be sidelined when issues of great national importance come along. This amendment does not take from the executive its power to make good a guarantee if there is a default, but it does require the parliament to be recalled to discuss that. If the government has confidence in this legislation, I think that it would have the democratic decency to ensure that the parliament was recalled automatically under this amendment in those circumstances.