Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I note with interest that Senator Abetz has just said that the government has not covered itself in glory with this decision. I would agree with that. Certainly the Tasmanian Labor senators, Senators Sherry, O’Brien, Polley, Carol Brown and Bilyk, ought to be in here defending Tasmania’s right to have what it ought to have under the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976—that is, not only a registry office but a registrar as well. I would note that Senator Abetz has not covered himself in glory, either, with the disingenuous reason he has given for not supporting an amendment which would actually ‘require’ the government to maintain the registrar, not just ‘call on’ the government to do so. He knows as well as everyone else in this Senate that that will not result in anything other than the government saying no. I notice that Senator Abetz said that he was prepared to take the government at face value. He has been taking people at face value pretty often recently. It blew up in his face quite badly the last time he took someone at face value. I would suggest that he consider it a bit more carefully when he says he will take the government at face value.

Does anyone in this Senate seriously believe that, if an amendment were to be passed in the Senate which would require the government to uphold the sentiment behind the Federal Court of Australia Act 1976, they would come back here after going to the House of Representatives and hold up critical legislation for four months, over a sum of $200,000? Of course not. It is absolutely disingenuous to say that the coalition will support this amendment if it is brought forward in another bill, because that bill will not be considered before Christmas—long after, if this process continues as it is currently going, the position in Hobart has gone.

I note with interest the minister’s response. It demonstrates that she and the government know full well that they are acting contrary to what the law intended. As Senator Bob Brown pointed out, section 34 of the Federal Court of Australia Act requires the establishment of a registry in each state. Section 18N requires that there be a district registrar for every district registry. Therefore it is very clear. The sentiment of the act says you have not only the registry but the registrar. The minister’s response was, ‘That is why we are now going to title the registrar in Victoria as the registrar of Victoria and the registrar of Tasmania.’ So the letter of the law will be fulfilled in that the registry will have a registrar. But in my view it is a complete sleight of hand. You know exactly what you are doing if you suddenly declare the registrar in Victoria to be the registrar of Tasmania and the registrar of Victoria in order. You know that this would be tested under the law otherwise, and that is why you have suddenly put in that position. I would like to know whether the registrar of Victoria and Tasmania is going to get a pay rise, because he or she will now be a registrar for two jurisdictions and not one. I will be interested to know about that.

The second thing I would like to know about is the claim that the saving will be $200,000. I would like to know what the cost of providing the same services from Victoria is calculated to be. If the government is making a decision to do this and take away the registrar’s position from Tasmania, I would like to know what the cost associated with providing those services from Victoria will be. I would think that in the end it will actually be in excess of $200,000.

But actually this is more an issue of principle than money, because Tasmania is a state of the Commonwealth. We are part of the Federation. We are the only state whose registrar the government and these Labor senators from Tasmania in the states’ house of this parliament are prepared to ditch. It would be wrong, as the Law Society of Tasmania has pointed out, in principle for a federal institution not to have an effective presence in each state capital of the Federation. That is the view of the Tasmanian law society. It is the view of the Tasmanian Greens senators. It is the view of the coalition senators as well, except that the coalition wants to express it as a request and not as an insistence in this federal parliament. It is a matter that should be insisted upon because we are part of this Federation.

I heard earlier this idea of the parent registry, as opposed to the child registry. So now, instead of Tasmania being an equal part of the Federation, Victoria becomes the parent and Tasmania becomes the child, the subset of Victoria. It is a flatter administrative structure to get rid of a registrar in Tasmania. I am sure there would be people who think that it would be a flatter administrative structure to get rid of Tasmania as a state altogether. That would be the logical step, if you are going to follow this principle that the government wants to embark upon, which would take away what is an effective presence in a state capital for a federal institution. That is the reality of what the government has decided to do here, and it is wrong.

Equally, the legal profession in Tasmania were not consulted about this decision, and that is again a sleight on the legal profession in Tasmania. As my colleague Senator Bob Brown pointed out earlier, if we end up in a situation where the Administrative Appeals Tribunal also moves its operations to Victoria then we will to see a huge amount of cost incurred by other people having to go to Victoria when they should be able to have their matters heard in their home state.

This decision is wrong. It is wrong and it appears to me that, as the Law Society has also pointed out, the review is superficial and deeply flawed. It did not consult the relevant stakeholders. It contains little analysis and there are no figures to support either the $200,000 saving or what the costs of providing the same service from Victoria will be. It is clear that the minister must tell us that if she is insisting that this is some sort of cost-saving matter. I think you should also recognise that a previous review recommended the retention of the Tasmanian registry of the Federal Court in its current form. That review was a much more thorough assessment and actually included consultation with the appropriate stakeholders. So I think it is entirely appropriate that we deal with the matter now, before the position is removed from Tasmania. It will be much harder after the position has gone to have it restored to its current form. I think it is critical that we go down the path of supporting this amendment now.

Senator Abetz earlier this week moved an amendment, which I supported, in relation to $3 billion of taxpayers’ money for a big subsidy to the car manufacturers. That went down to the lower house, and there was no consideration there about worrying whether or not the government would be held up in its legislative program. Apparently Senator Abetz thought that it was worth taking a stand on getting transparency around grants to General Motors Holden, Ford and Toyota, but he does not think it is worth taking a stand against the government when it comes to actually protecting this position in Tasmania. He knows as well as we know that this matter will not come back before the parliament for us to have an opportunity to move on an amendment before Christmas, and by then it will all be too late.

Let us get real here. This is the opportunity for the coalition to support the Greens to get this dealt with in the House of Representatives. If the government choose to hold up critical reform of the Federal Court because they want to deny Tasmania a full-time registrar, let them explain that to the legal profession around Australia and to the people of Australia, who will not buy that for a minute. This is a cost-saving measure that the government are just racing through. Worse still, it is an affront to the fundamental principle that Tasmania is a state of the Federation and that it has, as a matter of principle, the right to an effective presence. We are a state of the Federation and we should have an effective presence of a court registrar such as the one we currently have. I am just appalled by the way the government has chosen to get around the interpretation of section 18N. Suddenly naming the registrar in Victoria as the registrar for Tasmania, and therefore saying the registry has its own registrar, is a sleight of hand and people will see it as such.

I would urge the coalition to rethink its position of just ‘calling on’ the government to do something rather than forcing this back to the House of Representatives and getting this resolved tomorrow, because in reality that is what the government would do. I am really surprised that someone who has been in the Senate as long as Senator Abetz has could fall for the face value explanation that the government has given him. But then we have seen evidence of that in recent times on other matters.