Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for the Murray Darling Basin) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Temporary Chairman. Senator Conroy and I were both commenting before that we would not mind moving on from here. I assume that Senator Hanson-Young’s intervention in the debate means that the gatherings that I saw in the courtyard before have come to a close and there is potentially nothing for us to move on to now, Senator Conroy.

With these amendments, what we have is the Greens once again trying to cover their trail in this legislation. They just want to be able to say, ‘We pursued a few things to make the government somewhat more accountable or transparent.’ That is not at all what these amendments do. They certainly do not make the government any more accountable, because accountability means that there are some consequences if the government does not act. There is no accountability in these amendments, just as there was none in the other amendments. In the end, the government can seek all the advice it wants. It can go out and allow public submissions if it wants—it can do all of those sorts of things—but, ultimately, as we see littered throughout this legislation, the minister still has the capacity at the end of the day to basically do what he wants. For all the Greens’ carry-on, that is the point. The minister has the capacity to do what he wants. What we fear we will see is that, in curtailing the powers of the ACCC and the arrangements, along with what is happening with the National Broadband Network, we will get a less competitive outcome in Australia.

That is not what we want. It is not what anyone in this chamber says they want; yet by excluding the nation’s competition watchdog from exercising their full powers in the way that the Greens have assisted the government to do will only hurt us. It will risk our getting it wrong rather than ensuring that we get it right. The Greens had the chance in previous amendments and divisions to get it right. They chose not to take the chance. This amendment will not make a difference and will not provide an opportunity to fix or cover their failure to actually hold the government to account and seek a real deal on structural separation.