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

at a minimum. We on this side of the chamber have all said time and again that we think a period of something of the order of five months would be appropriate to consider legislation of this magnitude, as was the case with the new tax system legislation, where we had multiple Senate committees inquiring at the same time. I will just put to one side the fact that we took the goods and services tax to an election before deciding to put the legislation into parliament. I will just leave that to one side as a mere technicality, because I know that is all the government see it as—a mere technicality. There should be something of the order of five months, but we know that this government is not committed to serious parliamentary scrutiny. You would have thought, though, having rushed it through the House of Representatives, that they would at least go through the barest of motions of parliamentary scrutiny in the Senate.

The first thing you would do is you would have a decent Senate committee inquiry, and that would involve having multiple Senate committees inquiring at the same time into different aspects of the bills. That is something that the opposition proposed and the government said: 'No, we prefer having a mickey mouse joint committee that was racked and stacked.' The 18 or 19 bills were racked in there and the membership was stacked to ensure a preordained outcome. Senator Cormann and Senator Birmingham did their best on that committee to at least bring a modicum of scrutiny. They did an outstanding job, but the numbers were against them. The outcome was a foregone conclusion. You would have thought that there would at least be a decent Senate committee inquiry process.

This chamber has always jealously guarded its prerogative to undertake scrutiny the way it sees fit. In this chamber, we are not too fussed if those in the other place have their own committees. That is fine. They can do what they want. We are not too fussed if there is a joint committee. Joint committees can do what they want. But this chamber jealously guards its prerogatives and its rights, and this chamber was denied the opportunity to exercise that function of review, that function of scrutiny, by the Australian Labor Party and by the Australian Greens.

Having had that opportunity for scrutiny denied, we thought at the very least the government would provide a reasonable amount of time. It would not be enough, but at least it might at face value look like an attempt at some decent parliamentary scrutiny. And what do we see? We thought the government would give two weeks to this chamber. Senator Evans said in his press release that the Senate would have more than two full weeks to debate the clean energy package of bills. That is not enough, not nearly enough, but we thought: 'Well, they have denied proper scrutiny in the House of Representatives—they rushed it through—and they denied the opportunity for Senate committees to meet and inquire, they have denied a decent length of time for the Senate itself to consider these bills, but at least they will honour the two weeks that they committed to. At least they will do that.' No. Senator Evans's words are not worth the paper they are written on. Never again will we believe a word that Senator Evans says—never again. Why would we? This is black and white.

But we should not be surprised. This is a government that finds it as easy as getting up in the morning to say, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead,' and then, 'Sorry, we lied—there will be.' If you do not struggle with deceit of that magnitude, merely fibbing to this place about having two full weeks of debate will come very easily. So we should not be surprised. Why, therefore, should we or the Australian people believe this government when it says: 'Don't worry about the cost implications for the household budget of a carbon tax—you'll get decent compensation. Don't worry, business, about the cost implications of a carbon tax—you'll get decent compensation. Don't worry about the rise in the carbon tax over time—we will increase the compensation'? If you cannot believe that the government would stick to its word not to introduce a carbon tax, if you cannot believe it when it commits to two full weeks of scrutiny of the carbon tax in this place, why should anyone believe that compensation for the carbon tax will be adequate? You cannot believe a word those on the other side say.

Madam Acting Deputy President Moore, welcome. It is good to see you in the chair. I will not ascribe any particular thoughts to you on this issue. That would be quite wrong. So I will instead ascribe them to someone else in this chamber—Senator Faulkner. I think that Senator Faulkner would be absolutely disgusted by what is occurring here today. Senator Faulkner holds himself up as a paragon of virtue. I think Senator Faulkner is possessed of a bit of integrity and a bit of decency. He has styled himself as one of the custodians of the rights and prerogatives of this chamber, as an elder statesman who is committed to proper parliamentary scrutiny. I think Senator Faulkner would be disgusted at what we are seeing here today. The Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Evans, committed to two full weeks of scrutiny of the carbon tax package of bills, only to completely go back on his word, only to put a gag on a gag. I would hope that inside the Australian Labor Party there is great angst about this. It is bad enough that the Australian people were lied to. I will not say it is worse that proper parliamentary process and scrutiny is not being brought to bear. I will not say that it is worse, because nothing could be worse than lying to the Australian people. But this is shameless. This is outrageous. It is disgusting that the Australian Senate is being denied the opportunity to provide decent scrutiny of the most economically significant package of legislation to be brought before this place in living memory. I hope we do not see something of its like again. I really hope we do not.

In a sense, this is not a partisan issue. I would have hoped that all senators were committed to this chamber doing its job. It does not matter if the positions of the various parties are already determined. It does not matter if it is highly likely that this legislation will go through this place. This chamber still has a job to do to scrutinise legislation. This chamber still has a job to do to hold the government to account. This chamber is being denied this opportunity and the government should be condemned. (Time expired)