Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

You weren't here, Senator Edwards, so perhaps I can start again, but that would be repetitive.

The debate before the chamber is about whether this legislation should go to a legislation committee of this parliament or it should go to some completely foreign committee. I take some comfort from a 1996 report of the Senate Economics References Committee, chaired by none other than Senator Jacinta Collins, and Senator Mark Bishop was on the committee. They are the only two members of that committee who are still with us today. The committee indicated that a bill should have gone to a legislation committee and the government senators on that committee issued a report saying: 'Further it must be fully acknowledged that Senate parliamentary procedures dictate that the bill should have gone to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee. Unfortunately, for short-term political gain the opposition Labor Party has again flouted the parliamentary process by sending this to a references committee where the Labor Party has a majority in its own right.'

This report was released in 1996. The Labor Party was newly in opposition and could not get over being suddenly out of power. It was at the end of 13 long years of the Hawke-Keating Labor government, the recession we had to have and the huge debts the government incurred. The way the Labor Party ran the economy had me paying interest on my housing loan at 17 per cent. This was Labor Party economic management. I tell my young staff about those interest rates and they cannot believe them and, quite frankly, neither can I. Under Labor Party administration of the economy all of us with housing loans were paying some 17 per cent. It is no wonder the last Labor government ran up bills of more than $300 billion and thought it was good financial management.

Back in 1996 the Labor Party could not work out they were no longer in government. They could not quite accept that the people of Australia had rejected them, so they were trying to flout the system. I understand that happened for a short time after the 1996 election, but eventually even the Labor Party worked out that you had to play by the rules that the parliament had set, more often than not when the Labor Party were in government. The rules are that when legislation is referred to a committee, that legislation is referred to the committee specifically set up to deal with legislation—that is, the legislation committee.

That is what legislation committees are for. They also do estimates, but if you are not going to get the legislation committees to do legislation references, as they are supposed to do, what is the point of having them? Perhaps we should look at getting rid of legislation committees if the opposition and the Greens are not going to send legislation committees any work. Why have legislation committees if we are not going to send anything to them? Perhaps we should have just one committee. Is that what the Labor Party are pushing for? Is that what the Greens want? Do they want just one committee, because the legislation committee is not getting any work? Why do we have legislation committees? Just to give the chairman a bit of extra salary? That can be the only reason if the opposition will not send any work which should go to legislation committees to legislation committees.

The other issue in this motion before us is that the work being wrongly sent to the references committee has already been dealt with by the legislation committee. It has been properly assessed by a committee of this parliament, the legislation committee. I understand that Labor Party members could have attended the committee deliberations, but a lot of Labor senators did not bother to turn up. That is how interested they were. The committee had eight days to conduct hearings and arrange for witnesses, I understand. A number of witnesses were called and the committee came to a conclusion.

This legislation refers to some workplace relations legislation. I remind this Senate that when this legislation was previously brought in a couple of years back under the Gillard government, the Senate was only given five days, not eight days, to conduct a hearing. Now, suddenly, five days was good when it was the Labor Party wanting the legislation through but eight days is all far too short when the Labor Party are in opposition. It just shows the absolute hypocrisy of the Labor Party on this particular issue.

You can always tell with the Labor Party when it is legislation or something that will affect their political masters—that is, the union movement—because, gee, do they fight hard. They never fight this hard about anything except issues affecting the good order, wealth and longevity of their bosses in the union movement. I do not say being an official of a trade union is necessarily an evil occupation. Those opposite used to try and hide the fact that nearly every senator in the Labor Party who sits in this chamber is a former trade union official. Nowadays I see it must be the new strategy to get up and say, 'I am unionist and I am proud of it.' Perhaps you should be.

Labor's political colleague, Mr Craig Thomson, made people stop and wonder just how deep the evils that we learnt about go within the union movement. You see every week in the paper different allegations, not from the bosses or the Liberal Party but from people within the union movement, of misuse of union members' funds. The hospital cleaners I heard someone talking about yesterday pay their union fees—I do not know what they pay, possibly $300 or $400 or $500 a year—and then find that their union officials are flying around the world on their money. You can understand then why only 15 per cent of workers in private industry choose to join the unions. Most of them will say, 'I am doing pretty well. Why should I give my hard-earned money to a union and then find the union officials flying around the world, flying around Australia, having lavish dinners, drinking expensive champagne on our money?' That is why I suggest less than 20 per cent of workers in private industry bother to join the union movement. Perhaps when someone in the Labor Party follows me in this debate they might just explain that to me. If the union movement does such a great job, why do people not join?

I have diverted myself slightly from the motion before the chair. This whole issue has been dealt with by a select committee, by the right committee, by the legislation committee of the Senate. Why now are we going to waste time and reduce our productivity by having the same thing done again by the wrong committee of this chamber to try come up with a different result? It is a farce, it makes a farce of the whole project and it makes a farce of any suggestion that the opposition is responsible.