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

I do and I always have and I look forward to her promotion to the front bench under the new Rudd government. But it does sadden me when a person as sensible as Senator Stephens feels obliged, in reciting the Labor Party talking points, to dismiss the 500 most prosperous companies in Australia—the 500 biggest employers in Australia, our 500 greatest private enterprises—as Australia's '500 biggest polluters'. That is the contempt which the Labor Party shows to the productive sector of the Australian economy.

But, Mr Deputy President, this is a debate about parliamentary scrutiny and I want to share with you an experience I had some six years ago when I shared with Senator Chris Evans a rostrum at an event, down at Old Parliament House, about the role of the Senate. The coalition had just won a Senate majority. Senator Evans gave a speech and I want to read to you some of the things Senator Evans said in his speech. He talked about the development of the Senate committee system and how it was prejudiced by the Howard government's Senate majority. These are Senator Evans's words:

... the Government's—

that is, the Howard government's—

arrogance and determination to exercise its new found power did not end at avoiding scrutiny in Question Time. It quickly moved to use the tyranny of its majority to overturn or deny every practice, procedure and mechanism that had defined the Senate's modern role. ... Every Senate procedure and mechanism to ensure proper scrutiny and debate was bludgeoned by a Government committed to getting its own way. ... No proper examination of the legislation was possible.

... inquiries are for the purposes of window dressing alone. The Government majority has ensured limited terms of reference, limited times for inquiry, Canberra-centric hearings and reporting dates that prevent effective scrutiny, community participation and proper analysis and reporting. They are a fig leaf for a power drunk and arrogant Government.

He went on to say this:

Let me be brutally frank. Future Labor Governments with a Senate majority would face the same temptations that this Government has faced and grabbed with both hands. ... But Labor is fully committed to supporting the Senate's review and accountability functions in government and opposition. Labor believes the Senate's functions that have developed over the last 24 years are worth defending and preserving.

What hypocrisy! What shameless hypocrisy! Today, now that Labor is in government, now that Labor with its Green partners does have an effective Senate majority and the Senate is seized with what the government itself claims to be the most important package of legislation this parliament will see, there is a denial of effective parliamentary and Senate committee scrutiny of that legislation. The carbon tax package of bills comprises 19 bills stretching for 963 pages, not including the regulations. How much Senate committee scrutiny will there be of those bills? Three weeks! There will be three weeks of scrutiny by a committee with a government majority and a government chairman who will no doubt do the government's bidding.

The clearest comparison is with the GST legislation introduced by the Howard government. It was far-reaching tax legislation, with far-reaching implications throughout the economy. The Howard government afforded five months of scrutiny outside the period of the parliamentary debate, with no fewer than four parliamentary committees examining the GST legislation. So, for the all the honeyed words of Senator Evans six years ago, when he was in opposition, promising that in government Labor would do better, the truth of the matter is that, whereas the Howard government was prepared to allow four Senate committees—none of them controlled by the government of the day—five months to scrutinise the GST bill, this desperate, hypocritical Labor government will allow one Senate committee controlled by the government all of three weeks to examine legislation even more far-reaching.