Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I can only go by the Order of Business. You tell me that Senator Evans is here. Therefore we have Senator Carr, a very senior minister; Senator Wong, a very senior minister; and Senator Farrell, who is no doubt somewhere organising another leadership coup in the Labor Party. Three very senior members of the government choose to absent themselves on the last day of sitting—I beg my own pardon, it is not the last day of sitting. The last day of sitting is next Wednesday.

I want the people of Australia who are listening to this debate to understand that for almost nine months the Senate has agreed to sit next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Were we to do that, we would not have needed to guillotine through some 20 bills without a word being spoken on them—not a word in favour of them nor a word opposed to them. I think the people of Australia, and there are many who do listen to these debates, need to understand that the Greens and the Labor Party combined to guillotine through in excess of a dozen bills without a word being spoken on them. They also guillotined through perhaps the most complex parcel of bills that this parliament has seen in the last decade; they were the carbon tax bills, the bills based upon a promise by the Prime Minister that she would never introduce a carbon tax. She then introduced a carbon tax with 18 complex bills, which were guillotined through this chamber without proper debate. And we are already seeing that those bills are suffering because they were not subject to parliamentary scrutiny. We are already finding, by reports from around the globe, that these pieces of legislation on the carbon tax have suffered because they were not properly considered in this chamber. The whole carbon tax issue will become a farce at Durban next week when the United States, China, Japan, Korea, Russia and India indicate that they are not going to have a $23-a-tonne tax on their particular emissions of carbon dioxide.

I am very angry about the guillotining—about the dealing of these bills without any discussion whatsoever, and I think the people of Australia expect better than that of this parliament, and particularly the Senate, which has a reputation for scrutiny. We have a very extensive committee system, and the people like that because they understand that the Senate does expose difficulties with government legislation.

We have three senior ministers leaving this parliament four days before the parliamentary year concludes. The Labor Party stands condemned and the Greens political party, which have made a virtue over decades of allowing parliamentary scrutiny, of allowing people to have their say, even if they disagree with them, have joined with the Labor Party in curtailing debate on important bills, and particularly the carbon tax bills. It is outrageous that ministers should be given leave four days before the parliamentary year concludes. If Senator Abetz has suggested—I am not aware of this; I do not think I have seen it on the Order of Businessthe Greens political party are going to agree to the Senate rising today so that they can go to Durban, then this is an absolute disgrace. It should allow GetUp! and all of those other fringe groups that support the Greens political party to understand what a mob of frauds are those who occupy the benches of the Greens political party.