George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition opposes this motion. The effect of the motion will be to significantly constrain the capacity of the estimates committees next week to examine portfolios. In particular, that will occur as a result of the reallocation of responsibilities for tertiary education into the economics committee without any compensating allocation of additional time for the examination of the economics agencies. That is a disgrace.

As recently as yesterday the Prime Minister said during question time in the other place that she wanted the debate this year to be about the economy. She said: 'Bring it on. We want the debate this year to be about the economy'. This is one of those rare occasions where there is unanimity between the government and the opposition, because we in the opposition would like nothing better than for the political debate throughout 2012 and potentially—if the government does not collapse in the meantime—into 2013 to be foursquare about the economy. Yet the very next morning after the Prime Minister made that declara­tion, what does the government do here in the Senate? It moves what appears on the face of it to be an innocuous procedural resolution which will significantly constrain the capacity of this parliament—and in particular of the Senate through the Senate estimates committees—to debate the economy by examining the Treasury and the economic agencies.

This motion bizarrely proposes that examination of the tertiary education and vocational education and training portfolios be moved from the education committee—or, to give the committee its full title, the Senate Education, Employment and Work­place Relations Legislation Committee—and placed in the Senate Economics Legislation Committee. I served for five years as the chair of the Senate economics committee, and I know better than most people in this chamber just how heavy the work of the economics committee is. The Senate eco­nomics committee examines the Treasury. It examines all of the great agencies of economic regulation: the Australian Compe­tition and Consumer Commission, ASIC, APRA and various other economic agencies. It examines, importantly, the Australian Taxation Office. The entire range of fiscal, macroeconomic and microeconomic policy of the government is exposed three times a year for public view and parliamentary scru­tiny before the Senate economics committee.

As all of us in this chamber know from our experience as participants in the estimates process, there is always a great deal of time pressure. I venture to say that in no committee are the time pressures so acute as they are in the Senate economics committee—not merely because of the centrality of economic policy to the political debate and not merely because of the multiplicity of agencies that report to that committee but also because of the extremely technical character of the evidence that must be adduced and examined in that committee. I do not remember a time in government or in opposition when the Senate economics committee had enough time to do its work. At the very time when the government says it wants to focus the debate foursquare on the economy, it allocates time away from scru­tiny in the economics committee by building into its program the examination of agencies within the tertiary education sphere—which are perfectly well accommodated and have always been accommodated where they ought to be—in the education, employment and workplace relations committee.

The lack of interest of the Gillard government in education is notorious. It was made manifest shortly after the 2010 election when the Prime Minister announced her new ministerial line-up. For the first time in recent Australian history—for the first time in the half a century since the coalition government of Sir Robert Menzies recognised education as a Commonwealth priority by appointing then Senator John Gorton as the minister for education in the early 1960s—we had an Australian gover­ment without a minister for education. I say it again: when the Gillard ministerial line-up was announced after the 2010 election, for the first time in half a century there was no member of the government described as the minister for education. We had the hapless Mr Peter Garrett, who was described as the minister for Schools, Early Childhood and Youth, and we had our friend Senator Evans, who was described as the Minister for Jobs, Skills and Workplace Relations. You might think to yourself, 'Schools are obviously part of education. Senator Brandis is engaged in a quibble here.' But there was no minister with responsibility for tertiary education. There was not even a mention in the portfolio title or the departmental name. If I could let you in on a secret, Mr Deputy President, that is one of the many reasons why my friend Senator Mason, when he was made a shadow minister, was given the title 'minister for universities and research'. Whereas the coalition is interested in universities—no-one more so than Senator Mason—the government's indifference to the university sector was manifest in the fact that there was not even a minister with ministerial responsi­bility for it. Shamed by that act of inadvert­ence, the government had to change the titles of Mr Garrett and Senator Evans. So, as an afterthought, Mr Garrett was called the Minister for Education, Schools, Early Childhood and Youth, and Senator Evans had the words 'tertiary education' added to his portfolio responsibilities as Minister for Jobs, Skills and Workplace Relations. We know that as a victim of the flailing knife of the Prime Minister he has lost a lot of that portfolio in more recent times.

The Australian people who are listening to this broadcast this morning need to know that when Julia Gillard, who prides herself on being a Prime Minister for whom education is the first priority, and who had in the Rudd government—the government, let it be remembered, of the man she knifed in breach of her solemn undertakings to support him; but that is another story—been the minister for education, first got the chance to form a government, she was so interested in tertiary education that it was added to Senator Evans's portfolio title as an afterthought. That is how serious they were.

Now we come to the consideration of the additional estimates for 2012. As I said earlier, at a time when the Prime Minister, as recently as yesterday afternoon, declared economic policy debate to be the central ground of contest for Australian politics this year, she has foreshortened the time of the economics committee to examine the economic portfolios; and Senator Arbib, through his motion, proposes to segregate the consideration of education by leaving the consideration of schools and early childhood where it ought to be and always has been—the education, employment and workplace relations estimates committee—and to move the examination of tertiary education and vocational education and training to the economics committee. Why would you do that, unless you were trying to foreshorten the opportunities of the Senate, through its estimates committee process, to engage in the economic debate and to hold the economic bureaucrats and the heads of the economic agencies to account? For what rational reason, when you have an estimates committee that has been established for the purpose of examining education, would you move consideration of the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency to the economics committee? For what purpose would you move examination of the Australian Skills Quality Authority from the education committee or the National Advisory for Tertiary Education, Skills and Employment agency?

Senator Lundy interjecting—