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

I concur with the sentiments of the speeches we have just heard. I will come to those in a moment. The Federal Court of Australia Amendment (Criminal Jurisdiction) Bill 2008 provides the Federal Court with jurisdiction to hear indictable criminal offences relating to serious cartel conduct. It sets up a procedural framework to allow the Federal Court to exercise new powers granted by the Trade Practices Amendment (Cartel Conduct and Other Measures) Bill 2008. The bill creates two criminal offences, which relate to price-fixing and restricting outputs in the production and supply chain, allocating customers, suppliers or territories and bid-rigging by parties which would otherwise be in competition with each other as well. The bill does not remove the current jurisdiction from state or territory courts and it is in addition to the powers of these existing jurisdictions. So the Greens will be supporting this legislation.

On another matter I disagree with my Tasmanian colleagues from the coalition. It needs to be said first that I am very disappointed that the government has decided not to take the opportunity to amend this legislation to ensure that the Federal Court registrar remains with the Federal Court registry in Hobart. The intention of the court is to remove the registrar, effectively to Melbourne. That will leave Tasmania as the only state in the Federation which does not have a registrar. The position is extremely important. It is as important to Federal Court matters in Hobart as it is to Federal Court matters in Adelaide, Perth, Sydney or wherever else. It is not acceptable to me or to any of my colleagues, at least in the coalition—apparently it is acceptable to Labor colleagues in this place—that the registrar should be being removed from Hobart. This brings me to the amendment which I will put before the committee. That amendment would add a clause saying that:

The Governor-General—

effectively the government—

shall cause at least one Registry in each State to be staffed on a full-time basis, and for the complement of staff in each such Registry to include a full-time Registrar—

to make it clear that no state—and in this case it is Tasmania which is being singularly picked out—will be deprived of its registrar. The amendment, as I have brought it forward, ought to have had the support of the opposition, in view of the fact that the government will not support the Hobart registrar, and I will tell you why. The opposition amendment, which Senator Abetz moved, on the face of it purports to do the same thing. We heard Senator Abetz read out his amendment when he moved it. I will go again:

At the end of the motion, add:

but the Senate calls on the Government to ensure that:

(a) at least one Federal Court Registry in each state is staffed on a full-time basis; and

(b) the complement of staff in each such Registry includes a full-time Registrar.

It is very similar to my amendment, but with one difference: it ‘calls on’ the government to do that whereas my amendment ‘requires’ the government to do it. And we know that the government is not going to do that. So that second reading amendment will become ineffective, vacuous, an exercise in failure. The good senators who have just spoken have indicated that the government has said that it will not accept such an amendment. I ask you: what is the role of the Senate if we are going to be suborned by the government in that way? We might as well all go home. I do not accept it for a moment.

Senator Abetz earlier indicated coalition support for my proposed amendment but said that it would mean that the bill would be delayed. In other words, the amendment would go back to the House of Representatives, where the government would have to consider it. That is the normal course of events in this parliament. But to say that it would be delayed—really? The bill we are dealing with was introduced to the House on 3 December last year. So we are 10 months down the line. In fact, it did come into this place in February and, as we have just heard, a committee looked at it. It has been in this parliament for 10 months and the government has said to the Liberal Party members opposite, ‘If you support that Greens amendment, there will be a delay to the bill.’ The Liberal Party have said, ‘Well, we won’t then.’ I mean, really, what is going on here? I find the position now taken by the coalition totally unsatisfactory.

The Senate has the right to amend legislation. That is the constitutional power we have. The Senate was set up to represent the interests of the states. We all know that those interests have been subjugated to the interests of parties as this parliament has evolved in the last century or more. But here is an issue which is very germane to my home state of Tasmania, from where not just two—and Senator Milne will be supporting this amendment, so there will be two—but 10 other senators come. On this occasion, I would have thought they would be supporting the state and ensuring it is not treated differently from the other states when it comes to this important matter of having a registrar at the Federal Court.

Senator Abetz, though, says, ‘It may delay the bill.’ He says this after 10 months! Really, that is unacceptable. Senator Abetz and his fellow senators on the other side understand that a second reading here—and I will support that, no trouble—has no effect. The good senator says, ‘I’ll wait till the next bill, and, if Senator Brown moves it, we’ll support that one.’ I will move this amendment to the next bill that comes up; he named the bill. But, in 10 months time, after the next election and after the registrar has gone, you know what the government is going to say: ‘This will delay the bill. We cannot have that.’ We are going to have our coalition colleagues saying: ‘We’ll wait till the next bill.’ I cannot believe the naivety of the position taken by Senator Barnett and Senator Abetz. It is better than the position taken by the Labor senators from Tasmania, who have completely collapsed and are not even present for this debate, but it is a position of considered failure and obsequiousness to a process that, obviously, Senator Abetz did not understand.

After 10 months, this bill can withstand an amendment, and the amendment that I will put in the committee stage ought to be supported. I ask my colleagues in the coalition to reconsider this position. I predict that the bill that Senator Barnett was speaking about—which is going to be reported upon tomorrow and which will only come into this house on a timetable set by a government that has taken 10 months to get this bill here—is very unlikely to see the light of day this year as far as Senate debate is concerned. I ask the coalition to very seriously reconsider their withdrawal of support for the Greens amendment. If they do not, the pattern is one of destiny to failure and the loss of the registrar from the Hobart office.

I will introduce this amendment again, but the circumstances will not be different; they will be the same. We ought to be dealing with this now, while this legislation is before us and while we can take action. I predict that the government is not going to hold up this bill over the retention of the registrar in Hobart. The government would accept this amendment. It would be very injudicious of it not to accept it. I cannot understand why the coalition has gone to water on this, and I ask the coalition to reconsider. We will support the second reading and we will support Senator Abetz’s non-directive second reading amendment, but I ask the coalition to reconsider its withdrawal of support for the Greens amendment in committee, because that is directive and will require the government to retain the registrar.