David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I seek to respond to some of the remarks made by Senator Cash on the Maritime Powers Bill 2012 and the Maritime Powers (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2012. A whip once observed that 'Humanity is blessed with two ears and one mouth and they are best used in those proportions.' Reflecting on that, Senator Cash, I think a critical point needs to be made, and that is that you have missed, in its entirety, the central issue at debate here, which is whether your amendments actually affect any change at all.

I have said that the purpose of your amendments is to have this debate that we are having and probably to have this debate in the very terms you have it. But be very clear, Senator Cash, that as far as the government is concerned this is not a debate about tow-backs or turnaroundsor whatever you might want to call them. This is a debate about whether completely superfluous amendments should be adopted into legislation even though those completely surplus amendments are indeed superfluous. The prerogative powers of this government are not expanded or improved by your amendments. Your amendments achieve absolutely nothing, except to give you 20 minutes in this chamber to preach to this government about responsibility.

So let us just talk a bit about responsibility. Who is it who bears responsibility? Another whiponce said, 'There are lies, dammed lies and statistics', and again that is proven wholeheartedly with your use of statistics. It is a truism—perhaps unfortunately in this debate—that the coalition has tended to overestimate pull factors and the ALP has, from time to time, had a tendency to overestimate push factors. For those looking for the truth in this issue, the play between push and pull factors is critically important—but not for you, Senator Cash. For you the world is a very simple place indeed—there was no global financial crisis, there was no war in Iraq, there is no conflict in Afghanistan, there was no civil war in Sri Lanka, thousands of people were not cast up upon the shores and there are not 300 million refugees in the world today. For you the world is a very simple place.

That is unfortunately at the core of this problem, because it is not simply possible for you to say that the coalition's policies are the solution here, when the coalition has ruthlessly, at every turn over the past few years, sought to achieve nothing more than gridlock and stagnation. You are not interested as legislators in fixing this problem. You are not interested in working with the government. You declined to work with us on the expert panel. You declined to work with the government on amendments to the immigration legislation in the aftermath of the High Court decision. At every turn you have refused to work with this government. Why? Because you vote with your feet, Senator, and your feet and your vote are always for gridlock and stagnation. As entertaining as that debate is, that debate does not belong here, Senator Cash, except insofar as you can desperately try to make it so. This is a debate about whether completely superfluous amendments that achieve absolutely nothing for you or for us should be included in the bill. We say no. We say no for self-evident and obvious reasons.

Let me finish with this. I noted with interest, Senator Cash, that you spoke with great enthusiasm about the Labor Party's utterances in 2007. Next time you refer to a 2007 commitment as though it was an article of canon law, consider this: where is your commitment to the carbon trading emissions scheme which formed such a central part of the platform you were elected on? Where is your commitment to the 2007 platform of Howard and Turnbull to which you were committed? Dare I say it, before you start throwing rocks you should observe the glasshouse in which you reside.