George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Chairman. Had we succeeded in doing so, had we not been frustrated by a government that hides from public scrutiny and parliamentary review, then the time for this debate would have been extended by another 10 hours and the consideration of the committee stage of the debate would have been able to proceed, and proper and due consideration by this chamber of this legislation would have been allowed to happen.

But instead, what did we see? We saw a stunt in the course of which the government first of all tried to get rid of question time. Then, shamed out of that, they put forward a revised motion which reinstated question time but nevertheless constrained the consideration by the parliament, by the Senate, of this legislation. The Senate has now embarked on the consideration of the last of the amendments, which from the point of view of the opposition is the most important of the amendments—that is, the reference of this project to the Productivity Commission. So far we have heard from one opposition senator on this motion: the shadow spokesman, Senator Birmingham. How can anyone maintain that there has been proper scrutiny by this chamber of this legislation if the principal opposition amendment has not even had the opportunity to be discussed? And yet, as a result of the government moving this guillotine, unless the motion which I have sought leave to move were to be passed, there will be no significant discussion in this chamber of our proposal to refer to the Productivity Commission the expenditure of $43 billion of public money.

Now I know to those opposite the expenditure of public money does not matter at all. They are, after all, the party which in government drove Australia into the greatest level of peacetime debt we have ever suffered in our history. They are a government which fecklessly and flippantly proposes to commit at least $43 billion of public money to an untested, untried scheme; has serially sought to conceal from the parliament the business case that underlies the NBN Co.; has sought to conceal from the parliament the review of the business case insisted on by the minister for finance, Senator Wong; has sought to conceal from the parliament scrutiny of the rollout of the NBN Co. by withdrawing it from the supervision and jurisdiction of the parliamentary Public Works Committee; and has sought to close down debate in this very parliament so that the attempt by the opposition to have a cost-benefit analysis made by the Productivity Commission cannot happen.

Why on earth would anyone think that the expenditure of an unexampled amount of money by an Australian government should not have the benefit of a cost-benefit analysis? How could anybody seriously maintain that, before the parliament is asked to approve this expenditure, as we would be doing by voting on this bill now, the taxpayer is not entitled to be satisfied from a technical point of view and from that point of view of parliamentary scrutiny that there had been a full discussion? But, if the motion, which I sought leave to move, is frustrated, as I expect it will be by this government, the Australian people will know that they were committed to a generation of debt by this Labor government and the parliament was denied the opportunity of properly discussing the matter.