John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Treasury Legislation Amendment (Unclaimed Money and Other Measures) Bill 2012. This bill should be called the 'Government has its hand on my wallet bill', because that is what this is about. While I was listening to my colleague Senator Mason's contribution to this debate, I was wondering how many Australians are overseas and not aware that their parents set up a savings account for them when they were at school. When we were youngsters, just about everyone had a Commonwealth Bank savings account. I wonder how many people have gone overseas and are not aware they have one. Many of them have probably returned to Australia.

This bill basically means that in the six months from 31 December 2012 to 30 June 2013 the government will raise more than $760 million in additional revenue. The lost super measures alone will raise $555 million, more than half the promised $1.077 billion surplus this government have committed to for 2012-13. They certainly need the money because just before I came into the chamber I looked up today's gross debt. It is $253 billion.

Before I continue with my contribution, I want to make a point that at 5.30 today the guillotine will drop on this legislation. Before I handover to my colleague Senator Macdonald, I want to put on the record some quotes from others about the guillotine. On 6 September 2006, when in opposition, Senator Glenn Sterle said:

The Howard government are only too happy to guillotine debate to ram through legislation …

This next one is a good one, Acting Deputy President Pratt, you should listen to this. On 8 December 2005, Senator Stephen Conroy said:

Once again we are seeing the results of the government's complete arrogance and, more importantly, complete incompetence in managing the business of the chamber. You can forgive a desire to get your bills through by the end of a session. What you cannot forgive is this sheer arrogance and incompetence. We are moving this motion today because the government have been able to prosecute their agenda so unsuccessfully that we are hanging around with nothing to do. They jammed two very substantive and important bills through the Senate with almost no debate—the antiterrorism bills. I heard the Prime Minister on radio this morning saying: 'How could the Labour Party possibly complain? They supported the antiterrorism bills.' That is true, but what we did not support and will not support is the massive abuse of gagging the debate on important bills to allow less than one day, or two days for two bills. This is unacceptable.

I think it was said that we had seven seconds per amendment on the IR bills. This is a disgrace. It is a travesty. It is an abuse of this chamber.

And here we are watching the clock tick towards 5.30 and the guillotine. On 5 December 2005, Senator Bob Brown said that the guillotine is wrong. On 1 December 2005, Senator Carol Brown said:

We have seen this out-of-touch government continue its arrogant abuse of the Senate by gagging and guillotining debate …

The last quote I have before going on to the bill is from Senator Joe Ludwig—