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

It is often the case that negotiations are conducted with everyone except the government's own backbench. That is no reflection on Senator Fifield, who does a wonderful job in what are, I might say, very difficult circumstances. I very much support what he does.

Perhaps I will get on with the point I really wanted to speak about, and that is that I am told by staff that recently the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee was dealing with 14 concurrent inquiries. I was told that that was a record for the Senate. Whether it is true or not, it is not a record you would be proud of. I simply make this point: there are some bills that for government reasons—very valid reasons—need to be dealt with urgently, but we are getting so many references to both the legislation and he references committee that committees are struggling to cope with the work being given with them. It is not only senators themselves but also the committee secretariat staff, who do an absolutely magnificent job. They must be under pressure in trying to deal with all these committees, to draft chairs' reports and to deal with dissenting reports. It is not fair to the committee staff and, quite frankly, it is not fair to senators either.

The fault lies, of course, with those of us in this chamber because we continue to set up inquiries. I see a couple of other inquiries being proposed today. I do not know when senators are going to get the opportunity to deal with them. I rise today to say what I have been saying privately in our party room: we really do need to have a serious look at the workload of senators. As the Labor Party will know and as the Greens would appreciate as well, in government, ministers and parliamentary secretaries are not usually part of the committee process so backbenchers are dealing with four, five and six committees at the same time. We are travelling—in my case—from North Queensland to Hobart to Perth and trying to do justice to these things.

So I am just making a general plea for us to be a little bit more circumspect in the number of matters we refer to committees. In this instance I am very keen to see the Korea-Australia Free Trade Agreement implemented. I am very keen to be part of the committee that will look at it, because it is an area that I have a particular interest in. I am always a bit sad we did not get a better deal for sugar, but I will talk about that some other time. But it is good that it is coming. It has to be done, and I am sure the committee will deal with it expeditiously. (Time expired)