Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

As I was flying across to Canberra on the weekend from Western Australia, leaving early in the morning to get here late in the afternoon, I could not help but reflect upon what an important and historic week this will be in our national parliament, as we draw to a close the 43rd Parliament. They were not thoughts that were filled with lots of joy, actually, and I have often wondered, in the 13 months in which I have been in the Senate, how younger Australians might look at this 43rd Parliament and what lessons they might take out of it for the future.

I think this bill, like many other bills that we have seen this week, is testimony to the ill-conceived, shoddy, rushed way this government has approached our parliamentary democracy over the last three years. I think it is worth reflecting, before I come to the substance of the Australia Council bills—the Australia Council Bill 2013 and the Australia Council (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2013—what it is that is happening in our Senate chamber this week.

As Australians go to the polls on 14 September, they might like to think carefully about not just who they might vote for in the House of Representatives but where they might put their votes in the Senate, because the last three years have seen a very shambolic and rushed treatment of our parliamentary democracy—not just by the Australian Labor Party, but by them in cooperation, hand in glove, with the Australian Greens. So I think that when Australian electors go to vote on 14 September they should exercise tremendous caution not to bring back to their parliament the minor parties and Independents who seek, by their example, to wreck our parliamentary democracy.

I will share with people who might be listening to the Senate across the country today and those people in the chamber: it is worth reflecting that in the three years that the coalition had control of the Senate, just 32 bills were guillotined—a mere 32 bills. That is in very stark contrast to the 216 bills this government will have guillotined in its last three years. Anyone in Australia who cherishes our parliamentary democracy, our bicameralism and the federal structure on which it is built would find those statistics quite remarkable. This week alone, we will see 55 bills guillotined—49 of those will have been debated for less than one hour. Of the 49 bills, 30 will be debated for less than 30 minutes.

Senator Thistlethwaite interjecting—

Is that an interjection from the senator from New South Wales? When New South Wales people go to vote on 14 September, they might like to ask themselves whether Senator Thistlethwaite and his colleagues are doing the best by their—