Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I want to respond to some of Senator Brown’s concerns. The government shares Senator Brown’s concerns, frustrations and even anger at some of the corporate excess that has wreaked havoc across the world. While I think that your amendments are well intentioned and deserve serious consideration, they probably do not go far enough. By moving an amendment that only narrowly targets individuals in this area you are actually missing the wider cause of the problem. To just address this here like this does not actually solve the issues that you are seeking to solve. I share much in common with you about those issues.

You quoted extensively—and rightfully so—about the excess, greed and disgraceful behaviour of some of those corporate barons in the United States. The perverse part of what you are proposing is that there is a difference between the executives of the companies that we are seeking to assist here and those executives who were involved in that greedy, avaricious behaviour in the US. They were rewarding themselves for bad behaviour, and that bad behaviour brought on their own problems. The individuals being targeted here are the victims of the behaviour that you are describing.

The fact that they are unable to get their debt rolled over is not actually their fault. The purpose of this bill is to try and address issues for the corporations that are victims of the financial crisis, not necessarily through any fault of their own. While I laud and applaud your motives, I urge you to work closely with the government in this area. Personally, I would welcome that. There are many ideas that I think deserve serious consideration and to be put forward and debated as part of the Productivity Commission’s examination. I have got a lot of faith in Allan Fels and his willingness to tackle this area. Many of your ideas should be considered by Mr Fels in his report, and I would welcome your input into that process.

But I think you are actually confusing cause and effect in that the people who have caused this, who you identified rightfully in your last address to this place, are not the people you are seeking to put a constraint upon. They are not necessarily behaving badly or causing this problem. While I appreciate that you are determined to pursue your amendment, there is a genuine and serious attempt by this government to address the broader issues which I believe you are actually seeking to address. While we are not going to be in a position to support your amendment, we urge you to put forward all your ideas, talk with Allan Fels, talk with the Productivity Commission and join in this debate, which I think has to be had. The monumental failure of the corporate—and particularly financial—sector to manage and disclose risk has brought the world economic system to its knees. Your anger and frustration with those individuals and the systemic failure that has taken place is well placed and justified. But I believe this punishes those who have not been responsible for that bad behaviour, and it misses the larger target that we should be dealing with.

While I am sure you will pursue your amendment, and while we cannot support it, I urge you to participate and bring forward a range of policy options, solutions and ideas to the process that the government is engaged in. Allan Fels is a man of enormous integrity and I believe he will bring forward a package to address the excess, the greed, the extraordinarily bad behaviour and the systemic failure that we have seen cripple the world economy. I urge you—even if your amendment is defeated—to consider supporting this bill.