Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

What we see now is a government that have completely lost control of their own agenda. They are in a state now where, putting aside all of the fiasco of what happened last week, we have the PUP wagging the tail wagging the dog. This is not the government of Australia anymore. They are not setting the policy. They are not setting the agenda. You have a situation where agreements now have to be reached in letter, in writing, and have to be read into the Hansard for there to be any kind of an agreement. My friends in the Palmer United Party, what I worry is that you have been sold a pup. There is an agreement here about what will happen in 90 days. Let us be clear: that gets them outside the disallowance period; that gets them outside the period that is available for these regulations to be disallowed. What you have got here is a government who have said they are going to do a bunch of things, who have made promise after promise after promise to different groups, to different organisations and to different Australians and have broken them at every instance. That is what we are going to see happen here again. There is a 90-day timetable that was set by a government who are bent on breaking every promise they can break.

Today is a sad day for the tens of thousands of Australians who have suffered losses from financial collapses like those of Timbercorp and Storm and from Commonwealth Financial Planning. Rather than recognise what has happened in the financial services industry—an industry where a handful of rogue elements have given the broader industry a bad name—this government has sided with the interests of a handful of crooks, criminals and con men who want nothing more than to return to the bad old days of financial advice. Senator Cormann, you are better than this. You are better than a deal that needs to be done during question time regarding letters and controlling the government. This is a government that has lost control of its own agenda. This is not a government that sets out what happens on a daily basis. We wait and see what Mr Palmer puts in the Financial Review the night before. Let us be clear: we all know that this happened yesterday and today. We wait to see what Mr Palmer puts in the Financial Review and, based on that, the negotiations begin and the agreements get made.

This was meant to be responsible adult government. You had Mr Abbott say, on 4 August 2013:

There will not be deals done with independents and minor parties under any political movement that I lead.

Shame on you, Minister Cormann. Shame on this government. Shame on you for being a government that is prepared to do these kinds of dirty deals at the eleventh hour, simply to protect the interests of a handful of big banks, big interests and the big end of town. I actually have an incredible amount of respect for Senator Cormann. I have always viewed Senator Cormann as someone who has—a view that I do not necessarily always agree with—a libertarian free-market view and a view about responsible policy. Responsible policy is not determined at the eleventh hour in deals that are done in this manner.

A proper legislative process should have taken place, where legislation is brought into this place and there is an opportunity for a proper debate, an opportunity for amendments and an opportunity for every single consumer advocate group in this country to have their say. That is not what we have had. What we have had is a dirty deal being done at the eleventh hour with a minor party. A deal was done with a minor party at the eleventh hour, because this is a government that no longer controls its own agenda. This is a government that no longer controls what happens in the Australian Senate and can no longer control what happens with legislation. The government's relationships are so bad that we witnessed the humiliation of a minister of the Crown having to read into the Hansard an entire letter, simply because that was a term of the agreement. Senator Cormann, you are meant to be the minister and the government of this country.