Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Nash makes one of the most unprincipled contributions I have heard in this chamber, and I am surprised by that because that is not her form. To be fair to her, she did at least admit that she was about to rat on a deal, so I give her that—she was honest. The National Party and the Liberal Party are ratting on a deal. It is not an old one; it was made in March this year. With great fanfare, Christopher Pyne, the opposition spokesman on education, announced that he had done a deal with the former Minister for Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, the now Prime Minister, settling this issue and ensuring opposition support for our measures.

The measures Senator Nash seeks to overturn now have not even come into force—the deal will not be consummated until 1 January. A range of measures did come into force in July, but the measures that she seeks now to overturn do not come in until 1 January. So the Liberal-National Party did a deal, and before it has even been implemented they are already seeking to rat on it. Why is that? It is because they think they might be able to get the Social Security Amendment (Income Support for Regional Students) Bill 2010 through the House of Representatives as well and thereby put themselves in a position where once again they can try to make people believe that life is easy and everything can be funded and ‘don’t you worry about that’.

The reality is that Senator Nash, Senator Joyce and every Liberal member voted for the arrangements they seek to now overturn in a public, open and clear agreement with the government. Now they say to us: ‘We’ve decided we don’t really like them because we have a few people complaining about them and therefore we’ve changed our mind. We’ll take all the good bits that have been implemented, but we are now going to deal with the bits where we think we can curry favour with a certain section of people who would otherwise not be treated as well under these arrangements.’ In passing, they do not tend to mention that it is going to cost $300 million or so. What we have is a money bill being initiated in the Senate which we think is unconstitutional. The senator comes in and says, ‘I will make sure this bill does not go to the Selection of Bills Committee and I will make sure there is no inquiry into this bill. I will make sure that the motion today applies the gag and the guillotine and that we ignore the cut-off rules.’ All the things that the Senate has supported over the years—the cut-off, the selection of bills process, the capacity of senators to seek an inquiry and opposition to the gag and guillotine—will be overturned by this motion because it suits the Nationals’ political opportunism to do that today.