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

In asking us to acquiesce to this motion to suspend standing orders, the government are asking those of us on this side of the chamber to facilitate them in yet again denying this chamber the opportunity to provide full and appropriate scrutiny to a piece of legislation. And this is not just any piece of legislation; this is a piece of budget legislation.

We know what the government want to do. We have seen in the motions they have listed here that they want to bring into effect a guillotine for this legislation tomorrow. They do not just want to give precedence to it; they want to apply a guillotine. This matter has not yet been dealt with over on the other side of this building, but still we are being asked to agree to a suspension of standing orders which would enable this government to give precedence to this bill so that they can apply a guillotine. We will not be part of it.

The first reason we will not be part of it is that yet again the government seek to deny appropriate scrutiny of legislation in this place. The second reason we will not agree to this request for a suspension is that the particular piece of legislation in question, the one the government is seeking to have precedence given to, is nothing short of a con. It is nothing short of a sham. The student bonus legislation is the rebadging of the education tax offset currently in place. They are rebadging it and they are saying it is essentially the same thing—but it bears no comparison. What is currently in place is specifically for educational purposes. Receipts have to be collected. What it is going to be transformed into, if the government have their way, is simply a cash handout—nothing to do with education. You might put the word 'education' on the letter which conveys the money, although I understand the government's intention is that the money goes straight into people's bank accounts, but no doubt there will be a letter that kindly lets them know it has come along. But that does not mean that the money is for educational purposes and you cannot guarantee that it will be used for that. This is a cynical attempt to redirect money to assist the government in selling their carbon tax. This is a carbon tax compensation measure, plain and simple, dressed up as an education measure. We will not be part of that.

This bill needs proper scrutiny. This bill needs appropriate examination and the government are seeking to prevent that happening. I do not want to go into the substance of the bill—that matter is not currently before us. But it really does need to be pointed out that this bill seeks to bring forward spending in the back-to-school payment program. If you add that to the Commonwealth grants to local government, which the government are also seeking to bring forward into the current financial year, it gives a total of $1½ billion. So the bringing forward into this financial year of the back-to-school spend and the local government grants is what secures the illusion of a budget surplus. That is what this is all about. That is what this suspension is about. This suspension is about seeking precedence so that a bill can be introduced—and the government will then guillotine it, meaning it will not get proper scrutiny—to enable them to manufacture a surplus. That is what the purpose of this suspension motion is. We will not be a part of it.

But the thing which annoys me, which frustrates me and which drives me to distraction more than anything else about this suspension request is the fact that we have seen it so often before. It seems as if every other week the government have sought some sort of procedural stunt to deny this chamber its rights and prerogatives. It might be a gag. That happens all the time. They move 'that the question now be put' in the middle of a debate. It might be a guillotine or, as the government euphemistically call it, 'time management'. It might be denying the opportunity for a piece of legislation to go to the relevant parliamentary committee for examination. Every opportunity to deny scrutiny that presents itself to the government they take. But we say no. This motion should be defeated.