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

Senator Bishop, the report has only just been tabled, but this is the opportunity to take note of it. I am speaking to it because there is some great irony, I find, in a discussion about proper scrutiny given the 19 climate change bills that are before us, which Senator Fifield referred to. We are seeing far from proper scrutiny of those bills. Yes, the scrutiny of bills committee has gone through its usual process and, as Senator Fifield highlighted, it has found a number of areas where there are provisions about which they have concerns. They will write to the relevant ministers, seeking additional information to justify the direction the government is taking with this legislation. That is welcome, but in other ways, and especially when considered against the normal processes of this place, these climate change bills are receiving no such appropriate scrutiny.

These climate change bills are being rushed through the parliament on a fixed deadline agreed in both chambers by the Labor Party and their coalition partners in government. They have set this arbitrary deadline and, in doing so, they have set up a shotgun inquiry which is being held under the most ridiculous terms and conditions that any substantial legislative package of this type has ever been considered under. In comparison, look at what happened when the GST and the A New Tax System reforms went through this place. We saw months of genuinely independent, or at least opposition-led, inquiry into the detail of those legislative packages. Five committees were set up through this place, each of them looking, over a period of four to five months, at the detail of those bills, each of them going out and taking submissions and evidence from interested parties right around the country and each of them with a reasonable time frame in which to do all that.

Compare and contrast that with what we have for the carbon tax. The government have introduced 19 bills into the other place and their approach to assessing and considering them has been to establish a select committee. It is not a balanced select committee, mind you, but a select committee on which the government, together with the Greens and an Independent member—all of them part of the government's coalition arrangements—overwhelmingly outnumber the representatives of the opposition. They have seized total control of the committee, appointing a Labor member as its chair and a Greens senator as its deputy chair. When the GST bills were considered, those committees were chaired by Labor senators with Labor majorities. However, so much is the government wishing to totally control this process of consideration and public debate on its carbon tax that it has had to seize total control of this committee. It has thrown out all long-standing parliamentary conventions that where a chair is from one side a deputy chair is from the other side, ensuring some semblance of balance in the organisation and coordination of the committee. It has thrown that out in favour of having their own coalition partners running the show with them.

What about the timing of it? The timing of it does not exactly allow for proper scrutiny either. This is a rushed committee, a rushed inquiry—it has 20-odd days from go to whoa to get the job done, to thoroughly assess and analyse the details and merits of these 19 bills and make any recommendations after taking evidence about the content of those bills. That is a virtually impossible task in such a short period. The government has set and has forced the committee to set an equally impossible task for the Australian public, because the Australian public was given just six days to make their submissions on the legislation before this parliament—Australians have been given just six days to make submissions on the 19 bills, on the more than 1,100 pages of proposed new laws for this country contained in the carbon tax legislative package.

My message to Australians is: do not be deterred, do not be held back by the government's contempt for you and its contempt for proper commentary, proper scrutiny and proper accountability—please make sure you get your submissions in. Australians have slightly less than 24 hours now to get their submissions into this inquiry. It has been a terribly rushed process, but I would urge anybody listening to this broadcast to go onto the Parliament House website and make a submission to the committee, with of course its very spin-generated name of the Joint Select Committee on Australia's Clean Energy Future Legislation. It is a little bit of a mouthful but I am sure anybody who wishes to make a submission will be able to find its webpage and get their voice heard no matter how hard this government tries to stifle them.

Sadly, in terms of actually taking evidence and scrutinising this legislation around the country, the committee finds itself totally hamstrung by the government-Greens-Independent majority. The committee will not take evidence anywhere away from the eastern seaboard. That is a concern to me and I am sure to you too, Mr Acting Deputy President—