Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and Fair Competition) Share this | Hansard source

I take this opportunity to move the first amendment standing in my name. I indicate that clause 4 will be opposed in the following terms:

(1) Clause 4, page 2 (lines 6 to 14), clause TO BE OPPOSED.

What we have just heard, in my view, confirms the coalition's view that the case has not been made to suspend this provision. I say that on a number of levels. It is fair to say that people on this side of the chamber have been more constitutionally conservative. Most of the proposals to amend the constitution have come from the left of Australian politics. That reflects the fact that the Labor movement had no involvement in the Federation of Australia. There was only one Labor delegate at all the constitutional conventions; it was one of the great Liberal projects of the 19th century.

The constant wish of the progressive side to change our Constitution has led to various techniques, some of which are to keep putting up proposals and others of which are to have a lot going ahead on one particular day. Other techniques are to have them in conjunction with elections or take advantage of other opportunities.

I am not a person who thinks that the fact that only eight out of 34 referenda have succeeded is in any way a condemnation of our electorate or our constitutional process. It is a reflection of the will of the people. By their very nature, constitutional amendments proposed by the Commonwealth parliament have had a centralising tendency, and the constant wish of the Australian people has been to vote against such proposals. So if you keep putting up a proposal and the people keep voting no to it then the lesson is not that there is a problem with the process but that the people are saying no, no, no because they do not like what is being put up.

This is the third time this proposal is going forward generically. It is more akin to the 1974 proposal put forward by Gough Whitlam. It is true to say that on this occasion there is a greater degree of support across the parliament for the principle behind this proposal. There is, however, from this side of parliament a great deal of criticism of the process the government has used and there is scepticism about whether it has generated consent in the community and scepticism of the perceived need. In this particular case, the government is trying to suspend this provision, which I think we could call a fair play provision. It simply says that the Commonwealth cannot spend money on the referendum, arguing for or against, other than the booklet that is prepared by the proponents and opponents of the proposal.

Can I respectfully suggest to all the people who care passionately about this matter that this will not get the campaign off to a good start. This will not give the Australian people a sense of faith in the process, a process that the Labor Party has already failed at demonstrably by announcing it only last week, despite having a year to do so, despite bringing this bill in before we have even seen the other bill.

Some of my friends would call me a little bit obsessive about constitutional issues. I have studied these issues a great deal. I make this statement with all positive intentions: this is being put up for the third time—I think this will be the first time in the history of Australian referenda that something has gone up for the third time—and the Labor Party has shown itself to be lacking in mounting the case for change; there has been a lack of tilling the soil, of generating community need and explaining how this proposal fills that need. In a press conference held in Brisbane last week, the Prime Minister did not tell the coalition Premier—the only coalition Premier who had expressed support for the proposal—that she was going to do it. She did not tell the opposition spokesperson Senator Joyce that she was going to do it, and he has been an advocate for this. That betrays the agenda of this government, because if they were interested in success those are two of the first phone calls that would have been made. It is no secret that, at the state level, other coalition premiers are not supportive. So, given that bipartisanship is a necessary but not sufficient condition for a referendum to pass, those would have been the two first phone calls anyone trying to generate support would have made. One of the great lessons from history is what happened in the 1977 referendum, where Malcolm Fraser worked with the Labor opposition to generate bipartisan support and community consent. That was the most successful referendum in Australian history.

The opposition moves this amendment for several reasons. It is unjustifiable to borrow more money to spend on ads for this campaign when we have a deficit of the size that we do. It is unjustifiable to do so when you are seeking to restrict the mailing of information for and against the proposal to individual electors. Do not come to us saying that you want to save $4 million on sending the only thing that an elector will get about this that is directly addressed to them and then say you want to spend $10 million on ads.

The history of referenda is: do not let people become cynical. From what we have heard tonight it is clear that the government will not give the commitment that John Howard gave in 1999 that the yes and no case would be supported equally. If there had been funding based on proportionality of parliament in 1999, I do not think it would have been fifty-fifty, given that the Labor Party were basically en bloc supporting the republic proposal, along with some coalition people, but John Howard knew, after having had years of debate and an elected convention putting forward a proposal—partly a pointed convention— that the fairest way to deal with it and the best chance it had was in people perceiving that it was fair.

The government propose to suspend the fair play provision of the referendum act and appropriate money, all in the same day and the same week basically, and there is no commitment that it will be fairly used. We do not have criteria for how it is going to be spent and we do not have key performance indicators to see if the campaign is working. As far as I am aware, there has been no commitment given to the opposition that they will be involved in this process, despite the express bipartisan support for the principle underlying this referendum. It is not going to do the case for change any good. Anyone who says otherwise has no awareness of the history of referenda in this country. You could spend four times this amount, but if people do not think it is a fair process then their natural protection of the Constitution will come through. In all seriousness, this amendment should be supported by the advocates in order to ensure that cynicism does not start.

Senator Rhiannon made a few comments earlier today about the opposition that I have to address. I have been as clear as I can about the motivation for this amendment. Nothing that we are doing today would preclude a further amendment next month if these criteria were met. But the fact that this government will not give any details around the criteria, the targeting, the spending, the content and the distribution is a sign that it is not interested in that. Senator Rhiannon tried to assign motives to the opposition for this. It is true that some members of the opposition have a different view. They should not be condemned for that. It is outrageous to condemn someone for exercising their judgement and what they think is in the best interest of their community and their country and their conscience in voting on any issue, let alone on a constitutional amendment. But there has always been a frustration from the other side of politics that politicians cannot do this. You can fix a pre-selection if you are in the Labor Party, you can do a deal with the Greens to get into government, you can guillotine 150 pieces of legislation, some of which never had a word of debate uttered in this chamber, but the one thing you cannot do in this country is do that to the constitution. It has always frustrated you. I tell you now: if you think that you are going to address that by having an unlevel playing field, the Australian people will prove to you what they have proved to everyone else who does not engage them in constitutional reforms successfully. They will not support it.

To all the advocates—if any advocates are listening to this—I urge you to convince the government that this amendment is meant to strengthen the process, not weaken it, and that if this amendment fails, as I suspect it will, given what Senator Rhiannon said, then use every endeavour you have to prevent it starting the campaign unhappily only for the purposes of the proponents. That is an approach that in my belief—this is a prediction—will not lend this proposal any support.