Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

The Australian Labor Party have always had nothing but unbridled contempt for the Australian Senate. It was long the platform of the Australian Labor Party to have the Australian Senate abolished. They might as well put that back in their platform because today the Australian Labor Party have declared that they no longer see a role for scrutiny in the Australian Senate. The Australian Labor Party have given up any pretence of going through the barest motions of parliamentary scrutiny on this carbon tax legislation package. What we are seeing today is extraordinary. We are seeing what is in effect a gag on a gag. It was bad enough that the government put in place a gag to come into effect at the end of next Thursday, but bringing that forward to Tuesday morning next week represents a direct attack on the fundamental role of this chamber to provide scrutiny of legislation.

Senator Chris Evans, at the same time he was proposing with one hand the extra sitting week next week—which we were all meant to be extremely grateful for—was taking with the other hand by putting in place a guillotine motion. Senator Evans's media release of 21 September said:

... the Senate will have more than two full weeks to debate the Clean Energy package of Bills.

We were entitled to take the government at face value and believe that there would be two full weeks to debate the clean energy package of bills. It was not nearly enough; there should have been in the order of five months to consider something of this magnitude. That was the period provided to consider the goods and services tax legislation, the new tax system legislation, which did not have nearly the far-reaching economic consequences of this carbon tax package.

We were meant to be grateful for two full weeks. That is what the government and Senator Evans undertook to provide for this package of bills. We will not have two full weeks, as Senator Evans promised, for the consideration of this legislation. We will not even have 1½ weeks. This week was meant to be fully dedicated to the second reading debate. Next week was meant to be completely given over to the committee stage of this legislation. But all stages of this package of 18 bills will now be concluded by 11 o'clock or 12 o'clock on Tuesday morning—not even a day and a half for the committee stage of legislation of this magnitude.

In my seven years in this chamber I have never seen anything as audacious as this. When we were the government we were lectured time and again by the Australian Labor Party about the importance of scrutiny and the importance of the Senate as a house of review. We were told time and again that the Labor Party in office were going to be so much better; that the Labor Party were going to establish new standards of accountability, new standards of scrutiny, new standards of probity, new standards of propriety—and apparently new standards of administrative competency as well. None of that has come to pass.

I find it difficult to believe that Senator Ludwig, who is a straight shooter, has agreed with this course of action today. I think he has been given his orders by the Prime Minister and I think he has also been given a set of orders by the government's coalition partner, the Australian Greens. How do we know that? I will leave you hanging as to how we know that the Australian Greens really issued the order for this, because I have a feeling Senator Abetz may have something to add on that. So I will just leave you hanging.

Another outrage with this motion is the fact that GetUp! seem to have known about the decision to bring the carbon tax legislation to a vote on Tuesday before the Australian Senate knew. The government advised the opposition yesterday afternoon of their intention, but, when you jump on the web, you see that GetUp! have had buses booked for a couple of days to bring people from Sydney, Melbourne and from all over Australia for the grand celebration of the passage of the carbon tax legislation.

Senator Ian Macdonald interjecting—

If you thought that we saw scenes of celebration and jubilation in the House of Representatives when the carbon tax package passed that place, you ain't seen nothing yet compared to what they have planned for Tuesday next week.

Senator Ian Macdonald interjecting—

We saw disgraceful scenes in the other place when the carbon tax package legislation went through—disgraceful scenes, with government ministers kissing, embracing and whooping it up that the carbon tax legislation had passed. What they were really doing was whooping it up, embracing each other and congratulating each other because they had completed the first stage—