Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

The Labor-Green alliance in this place has set about to gag debate. This will now be bill No. 159 that the alliance has guillotined through this place. It is an absolute disgrace when you remember the hyperbole of the Australian Greens when the coalition guillotined 34 bills in a three-year period. Here we have the Labor Party and the Greens, in alliance, guillotining five times that number and counting.

Here they are, seeking to further restrict the opportunity of the opposition to make contributions in this debate. The simple fact is: so indecent was the Manager of Government Business in the Senate in her haste to move the guillotine motion that she forgot the dinner break. We on this side are willing to forgo a dinner break to allow further ventilation of the vital issues confronting this nation. I am sure the Greens alliance partners will help debate this in a manner that will allow a dinner break and, as a result, cut the time even further. But each and every time, when the Green-Labor alliance in this place uses its numbers in such a ruthless and arrogant manner, we will remind the Australian people, day after day until 14 September, to ensure that they know that the coalition are the best people to manage and hold the Senate.

Make no mistake: the ruthlessness, the arrogance of the Australian Greens and the Labor Party, in just ramming stuff through this place, is such that they do not deserve to be entrusted by the Australian people with the privilege that they have been given by having the numbers in this place.

You would have thought they might have learnt from their past mistakes. Who were the parties that guillotined the disastrous mining tax through the Senate? They knew it all. They did not need opposition input into the legislation. They knew it all. Of course, how is that going now for them? Not so flash. What about the carbon tax legislation they guillotined? It is not going so flash either, is it? Both of them are not collecting half the money that they thought they would. But what did they do in typical Green-Labor alliance style? Ensure that all the money predicated was spent in advance before the money was even collected. That is the sort of problem that the Green-Labor alliance entertain day after day in this place, when they deliberately and arrogantly refuse the opposition to properly ventilate the issues that need to be ventilated in an attempt to save the alliance from themselves.

Indeed, if the Green-Labor alliance were to have actually listened to some of the wonderful contributions made by colleagues such as Senator Mathias Cormann and Senator Ian Macdonald rather than to have had an indecent haste to guillotine, they may have saved themselves from some of the embarrassments they now face.

Now, it is one of these great ironies, is it not, that we have the Senate gagged and guillotined so the minister for communications will be able to gag the media. That is what this is about, and yet they claim, 'There is no problem with freedom of speech here—nothing to be seen here! Everything is good here.' But, of course, the Labor Party and the Greens will now be on the Hansard record as guillotining this legislation through the Senate so that they can gag the media and have the opportunity to get some vengeance on what they describe as 'the hate media' at News Limited.

Can I tell you, Mr President, when you live with the Hobart Mercury as I do in Tasmania, where the News Limited chief even admitted what a good go the Greens get in the Hobart Mercury and that the Greens should not be complaining—he made that comment at the recent Senate inquiry—one wonders why the Greens are so hateful and so vengeful to the private media.

Can I repeat—repeat—and say very, very strongly on behalf of the opposition that we oppose any further adjourning of the Senate, because we believe these issues need to be ventilated, and ventilated fully. The Manager of Government Business is so shambolic in her organisation and, sure, distracted by leadership tensions and all sorts of other tensions with this legislation not being put through the cabinet properly and not being put through the party room properly, and now they are voting. They have leaked about that—they have leaked to the Australian people that the cabinet process was truncated. They have leaked to the media—you know, the one they are trying to gag—that the caucus process was not followed. Can I tell you that I can now believe that, because they are ensuring that the process in the Senate is not being followed properly either, which makes it a trifecta. But here we are, confronted with the desire to cut even further time from the opposition. We will not stand for it; we believe that there should be proper time made available to ventilate all these issues.

I would honestly ask the Australian Greens: if they are to have any credibility left at the time of the next election, can they simply keep on guillotining these bills through the Senate in the way that they have? And keep in mind that we do have the quotes from the Australian Greens as to what they said when the coalition guillotined a meagre 32 bills—it was an affront to democracy, it was outrageous and it was arrogant. Yet when the Greens do it—not twice as often, not three times as often and not four times as often, but five times as often and more—'Oh, it's all part of the democratic process.' That is duplicity and that is the rank hypocrisy that the Australian people and, might I add, the media are now seeing from the Greens in power. They are seeing the Greens in power as being very, very arrogant. (Quorum formed)

It is great to see so many Labor senators re-emerge in the chamber, because it is important for them to know that the Australian people will judge them at the next election, along with their Greens alliance partners, for the way that they are treating this chamber. They are treating this chamber in a most shameful manner.

We have a situation where, with virtually no notice, the Manager of Government Business moves to change the sitting hours so that they can guillotine legislation through. Then, of course, they forget the dinner break. That is the sort of indecent haste and lack of planning that is the hallmark of this government. It is the way that these media bills were introduced to cabinet and it is the way these media bills were introduced into the caucus—and it is great to see the chairman of caucus here, Senator Gavin Marshall. And if the media reports are correct—and they have not been denied—real concern was expressed as to the way it was handled in caucus. I would fully agree with Senator Marshall's sentiments, if they were appropriately reported—and there is no reason to doubt that they were not appropriately reported.

We are facing exactly the same situation in this chamber: not properly dealt with and then we forget the dinner break. But we then use that as an excuse to further truncate the opportunity for the opposition—its capacity—to make contributions to very important pieces of legislation.

The bill that has just been guillotined, the National Disability Insurance Scheme Bill, was something that many of us on this side of the chamber would have been wanting to make further contributions to, but we had the so-called time management, or guillotine, in place. We will have the guillotine yet again. The tally now is 159 bills guillotined by this alliance of Green-Labor senators. All of the nonsense that they spoke just a few short years ago when the coalition had a majority in the Senate—that the guillotine of 32 bills was an affront to democracy. Thirty-two bills an affront to democracy! But five times that number by the Green-Labor alliance and not a word to be spoken about that. That is quite okay. Why? Because coalition bad, Labor-Green good. It is as simple as that. You do not have to think about it. You do not have to think about the ethics, you do not have to think about your hypocrisy, because all you have to say is: Green-Labor good, coalition bad.

The Australian people are awake and they are now saying loud and clear, as they have in Western Australia just recently, that Green-Labor is not good and the coalition might, in fact, be a safer pair of hands. That is what the Western Australian people said just recently and I would hope that the message gets to our other fellow Australians as well—that when it comes to the management of this place the safest and most respectful pair of hands to manage the Senate is not the Green-Labor alliance but the Liberal-National Party coalition, because we actually do respect this place. We do accept that from time to time you do need to put in time management; you do need to put in guillotines. That is part and parcel of the system. But with all of these things it is a question of: how often do you do it? If 30 times the guillotine of a coalition was such an outrage to democracy, what is five times that number by the Green-Labor alliance? It surely must be five times the outrage.

There has not been a squeak out of the Greens—not that you would expect it—but I would have thought that there might have been some Labor senators who actually had got over their previous disposition that the Senate should be abolished and now actually do see a good role for the Senate as an upper house, as a house of review. But if we are continually going to have our time in this place frustrated by an arrogant government seeking just to guillotine everything through this place, then the coalition will use every opportunity afforded it by the standing orders to make the point and to highlight to the Australian people the abuse that is happening in this place by the Labor Party and the Greens.

The Senate is a very important, vital part of the Australian parliament. Our founding fathers made a good decision to have a Senate, to have a house of review. They actually expected it to be able to undertake its role and undertake its role with vigour—that role of ensuring that everything was ventilated. But no, here we now have, regrettably, the Green-Labor alliance just guillotining and guillotining, thinking that that is the way to do business. Why? Because they have got numbers. And that is the same attitude towards freedom of speech in the media bills that will come to us over the next day or so. They have got the numbers and so they will guillotine and they will then restrict the freedom of the press. Not content just to gag the media, they are willing to gag the Senate as well. Indeed, they need to gag the Senate to be able to gag the media.

I understand that other colleagues might wish to make a contribution in this debate, and therefore I will curtail my remarks. If the chair of caucus—who seems to be itching to get up on his feet—were to make a contribution, it would be very interesting to ascertain from him what actually did occur in caucus and how supportive caucus is of these bills. Is it a fact that they are seeking to guillotine these bills so that not as many Labor senators as otherwise might want to speak get the opportunity to speak, because they were not allowed to in cabinet and they were not allowed to in caucus? The only place they might be able to talk about it is the Senate and so they have to guillotine that process as well. That would be a very interesting contribution and, Senator Marshall, we would not want to stand in your way, should that be your wish.