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

The Australian Human Rights Commission Amendment (National Children's Commissioner) Bill 2012 will be debated for a total of one hour and 40 minutes under the motion that we are now addressing. There could not be a more important bill relating to human rights, something that the Greens are always carrying on about. Yet they are restricting debate on that particular bill to one hour and 40 minutes. And Senator Milne has the gall to call others hypocrites. The hypocrisy of the Greens knows absolutely no bounds whatsoever. I thought that the Greens—or so they are always telling everyone—were the party of human rights. But when are we going to debate this bill on human rights? In one hour and 40 minutes—that probably works out to two minutes per senator. What a great debate that will be!

The Passenger Movement Charge Amendment Bill is a bill which will again put pressure on the already overstressed tourism industry in Australia. It is a bill that, no doubt, will pass with the support of the Labor-Greens political alliance. The debate on that particular bill, which will add some 17 to 20 per cent to the cost of inbound passengers coming into Australia, is going to last exactly one hour and 40 minutes. One of the most important bills for all those small businesses around Australia, which will be absolutely devastated by this increase in the passenger movement charge, will be debated for fully one hour and 40 minutes.

I remember the days when the Howard government was in charge and we used to get these speeches from Senator Milne and Senator Brown, as he then was, about how undemocratic it was to curtail debate. I remember Senator Brown speaking for 27 hours solid on the Regional Forest Agreements Bill, a bill that established a regime in Tasmania which, had it continued, would have allowed for the jobs of the workers in that industry to build a first-class timber industry for Australia. The Greens opposed that; they spent 27 hours filibustering to try to prevent that bill. In that instance, the Labor Party, for once, stood up for forestry workers and supported the government's Regional Forest Agreements Bill. But the Greens filibustered for 27 hours, and there was no guillotine moved. We allowed the Greens to have their say, even though it was so repetitive that Senator Brown spoke the same words every time he got to his feet. But did we guillotine that? We allowed the Greens to have their debate on that because we knew it was important to them. As Senator Abetz has pointed out, what hypocrisy from the Greens political party.

When it controlled both chambers, the Howard government had only 36 bills that were time-managed in three years. The Greens and the Labor Party now have well over a hundred bills that will be guillotined and debate curtailed. I need to remind listeners that this carbon tax that will start in a few days' time—the one that the Labor Prime Minister promised before the last election would never be introduced under her government—amounted to 18 bills with every senator having only a couple of minutes to debate those bills. The result, of course, was that few of those bills were debated fully and properly, because of the Greens and the Labor Party getting together to substantially restrict debate on that.

Senator Milne has prattled on about climate change again, again accusing coalition members of not recognising climate change. Of course, we recognise climate change—the climate has been changing for millions of years. Once upon a time, the earth used to be covered in ice and snow, but it is not now. Clearly, climate has changed over a long, long period of time, but will imposing the world's greatest carbon tax do anything about the changing climate of the world? As everyone knows, Australia emits less than 1.4 per cent of the total emissions of the world. This world's greatest carbon tax is going to reduce emissions by five per cent. This tax will continue to increase. It is not just a tax this year; it is a tax that continues to rise every year. No matter what compensation or what voting bribes the Prime Minister might send out to the Australian people, nothing will ever compensate for the increases in the cost of living that every Australian will suffer as a result of this Labor-Greens tax. Did members of this chamber have the right to debate those bills and to point out the very obvious flaws in those bills? Clearly they did not.

Senator Abetz also mentioned the fact that every time bills are guillotined, it is government documents that are thrown to the wind. Why do you think this would be? The Greens have little interest in accountability, but you will also note that by Thursday afternoon, when government documents come on, most of the Greens have left parliament and gone home.

Senator Birmingham interjecting—

Jetting their way home, as Senator Birmingham says. They never bother to participate in that. Yet, Mr Acting Deputy President Cameron, as you would know, those hundreds of government documents that come through every week give the Senate the ability to look at the expenditure, to look at the decisions of government, to question particular issues and to really make accountable government actions and expenditure. But the Greens and the Labor Party want to get rid of the time for those government documents. Why? Because it takes away the Senate's opportunity to keep the government accountable for its expenditure. Anything this government can do with the support of their Green allies to stop accountability, they will do. This guillotine motion before the chamber at the moment is yet another example of this. How can the Greens get up and with a straight face and actually promote this guillotine, this undemocratic action, when you read what they used to say when a different government on a very few occasions sought to time manage the important bills through the parliament? I am just aghast with the hypocrisy. But then I think most people who would be listening to this debate know of the hypocrisy of the Greens political party.

Not many of us take too much notice of opinion polls but when the Labor Party is currently supported by less than 30 per cent of Australians you can understand why the Australian public are just sick of the way the Greens and the Labor Party get together to run—or ruin, I should say—this parliament. So many people ask me why the Labor and Greens parties get together to curtail debate. They have got the numbers to pass things anyhow, but why prevent the elected representatives of the people from exploring every avenue and looking at every opportunity to perhaps suggest ways of improving bad legislation, to perhaps try and convince some of those in the Labor Party that what they are doing is wrong?

Mr Acting Deputy President Cameron, you and I both know that there are many members of the Labor Party who are totally opposed to a carbon tax, not only because it is bad policy but also because it is electoral oblivion for many Labor politicians. But because of the pressure put on by the Greens political party and then the Labor Party being so weak, with their leadership so weak and divided that they can do nothing else but roll over to the Greens, we have this type of government that we have at the moment which brings in this undemocratic form of management of this chamber. Why is it that the government and the Greens do not allow full debate?

The Manager of Government Business in the Senate says a lot of the bills were noncontroversial and they had the support of the opposition and therefore we should allow only five minutes to debate them. I say to the Manager of Government Business she does not understand that around all of those bills there is a lot of issues which need to be aired. Whilst the opposition does sometimes support some of those bills, it is done reluctantly. There are ways those bills could the improved. There are other issues relating to bills which are classed as noncontroversial which should be debated. Yet if members of this chamber exercise their democratic rights and their procedural rights to discuss those bills we get the Manager of Government Business saying it is a filibuster. So, according to the manager, free speech and proper debate on any bill is a filibuster.

I do not want to take too much more time on this debate as I know my colleagues have an interest in this motion before the chair at the moment that they want to expose as well. But I wonder about the future and think of when governments change and when perhaps a time management regime might be put in place on rare occasions. Mr Acting Deputy President, could you imagine the howls of outrage that you will get from the Greens political party then! I could write their speeches for them because I would only have to go back to what Senator Milne and Senator Bob Brown used to say on the rare occasions that time management was introduced under the Howard regime. I will be here for a while and I am sure I will be in the parliament when the government changes and, while it would be unlikely that the Abbott government would introduce too much of a time management regime, on the rare occasion that it will be necessary I cannot wait to hear the Greens then. You can just imagine now hearing Senator Milne, holier than thou, with great umbrage being taken, yet here she is today spending 20 minutes trying to justify the Greens' unholy alliance with the Labor Party in curtailing free speech in this parliament. I hope that perhaps the debate here has convinced some members of the Labor Party to appreciate—and I know the Greens will never do it—that free speech is more important than this motion before the chamber and will vote against it. I would certainly urge all senators to vote against the motion.