Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to draw us back to the substantive part of this debate. We are debating whether these 11 bills should be referred to a committee for examination. I move to the motion moved by Senator Wong:

Omit “15 June 2009”, substitute “11 August 2009”.

This amendment will change the date of reporting for the committee from 15 June to 11 August this year. The reason for the amendment is that in the words of Senator Wong herself, this is a very substantive suite of bills.

Senator Wong indicated there have been over 11,000 general submissions. These 11 bills were put through the House of Representatives this morning. We have not had a chance to examine any of the bills. We have not seen them. The government wants to rush this through. Why does the government want to rush this through when the government has deferred the implementation of the CPRS until well beyond 2010? We believe an extra few weeks will give the community the opportunity to make submissions and allow the Senate due process.

We also need to consider that this is budget week. Committees and senators are going to be inundated with work in examining the budget bills. This week the legislative program is not moving forward as fast as it could because of the budget. The Senate is going to need the remaining two weeks of the winter session—we have estimates in the next fortnight—to examine other bills and to finish some of the work that is already on the agenda that the government considers necessary and urgent. We, therefore, strongly suggest that the committee not report on these bills before the senators have had a chance to consider them by having examination during the winter recess.

The winter recess, as many senators know, is often used for a lot of committee work whilst the pressures of parliament do not exist. This would give ample opportunity for people who wished to make a submission to do so. This would also give ample opportunity for the committee to be ready to proceed with the inquiry. This is not just any piece of legislation; this is one of the government’s most significant pieces of legislation. Senator Wong has admitted that herself this morning. She has indicated that many Australians have expressed a lot of interest in this. Senators need to have a clear and open path and plenty of time to examine the bills. There are 11 bills, not just one bill, so we strongly suggest that the Senate adopts the amendment and moves the reporting date of the committee to 11 August 2009, which will give ample opportunity for the committee to do its work properly and then for the Senate to consider the committee’s report when it next meets after the winter recess. This will give the government plenty of time to make any decisions it needs to after the committee has reported, because the government itself does not want to implement this until well into 2011.