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

And programmatic specificity! If you could encapsulate the crafting of bad policy in one phrase, it would be Kevin Rudd's—the former Prime Minister's—'programmatic specificity'. There is an even more important reason, though, that we need to have question time next week, and that is the very basic principle of the accountability of a government to the parliament. This government evade accountability at every opportunity. They evaded it on the carbon tax when they lied to the Australian people—they did not want to be accountable to the Australian people, so they fibbed. They then evaded accountability by curtailing debate in this place on the carbon tax, and they have sought to do that again this week with the 33 bills before us. They take every opportunity to evade accountability.

It is also important to have the parliament sit in order to hold the government to account because we know that they are specialists in deceit. This government promised that they would be better than the coalition. They promised that they would set new standards of accountability and integrity. We have heard Senator Faulkner talk a great deal about that. I do not doubt Senator Faulkner's sincerity on that point, but I tell you: I do not think many of his colleagues share it. This government is characterised by deceit.

Perhaps the most disgusting example of deceit that we have seen in recent times is what happened over the other side of this building yesterday. This outfit really have a taste for guillotines. They guillotine legislation, and yesterday they guillotined a Speaker. That has not happened for centuries. Off with his head! Boom! It came off, it was clean and it was quick—it was a guillotine. His head is gone; he is gone; it is over—we have a new Speaker there. The reason I say that it was one of the most disgusting things I have seen since I have been in this place is that one can only wonder—though I am not going to cast aspersions on anyone—about the circumstances that led to the former Speaker's resignation. I am tempted to take the former Speaker's words at face value, but I can tell you, Madam Acting Deputy President, that there are many who will not, including most members of the Australian public and including the Australian press gallery. I do not think they will take his words at face value. There could be no clearer example of why it is important that the parliament sit every day on which it is scheduled to do so than the events of yesterday. Nothing this government does is straightforward. Nothing this government does is as it seems. This government has perfected deceit. This government has turned it into an art from.

We need to have this Senate sit next week. We need to have it sit so that we can appropriately debate the remainder of the 33 bills which are still before us. We need to have the Senate sit next week so that the MYEFO minibudget can receive appropriate scrutiny. We need to have the Senate sit next week so that we can perform the function of holding the government to account. We need to sit next week so that the government is answerable to the chamber that the people have elected. We need to sit next week so that the Australian people get value from this chamber.

As Paul Keating always said, the Australian public should get value from their parliament. We need to sit next week so that we can ask this government questions about their badly crafted policies. We need to sit next week so that we can ask the government questions about their administrative competence and about the programs which they are seeking to deliver. We need to sit next week so that we can make sure that this government does not continue in its deceit of the Australian people.

This—the curtailing of the sitting of parliament—is not a minor matter. People have fought for centuries over the rights and prerogatives of parliaments. People die for the opportunity to have their parliaments meet, sit, be elected. We should not be cavalier in dismissing sitting days of the Australian parliament. We are elected to do a job. On this side of the chamber we want to do that job. The government should withdraw this motion. The Australian Greens, if this motion is put, should vote with us. This motion stands condemned.