Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

If no further colleagues wish to contribute to the debate, then I shall close it. It might not have been clear from a number of the contributions by opposition senators, but the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (2014 Budget Measures No. 6) Bill 2014 seeks to reintroduce several 2014 budget measures in the Social Services portfolio which were previously introduced in other budget bills.

It is important that I correct some of the fantasies which have been shared with this chamber by Labor senators in the course of the debate on this legislation, chief amongst which is that the government had an opportunity to separate the various provisions in this bill into a form that the Australian Labor Party would support. That is in fact what the government endeavoured to do. When the package of legislation was originally introduced, the government was quite happy to not oppose the amendments that the Australian Labor Party circulated in this place, which had the intent of deleting from the original bill those elements which the Australian Labor Party would not support. We recognised where the numbers lay on that issue, and we would have accepted that occurring in this place. Where we would have ended up is exactly where we are now with these provisions in this bill that the Labor Party in fact support.

The perverse thing was that the Australian Labor Party circulated amendments to delete those provisions of the original bill that they did not support, but the Australian Labor Party did not allow the bill to be read a second time so that the amendments that they in fact circulated could be moved in the committee stage. The Australian Labor Party contended that they could not possibly allow the bill to be read a second time, because that would in some way, shape or form indicate that they supported elements of the bill that they were not in fact supportive of. That is not the case. For instance, the Australian Labor Party supported the second reading of our MRRT repeal legislation. I do not think anyone took the fact that they allowed the bill to be read a second time and to go to the committee stage as evidence that the Australian Labor Party had changed their mind and were going to support the repeal of the MRRT. So it is not an uncommon thing in this place for parties to allow legislation to be read a second time and to go to the committee stage, even though there are elements of that legislation that they do not support. The Australian Labor Party put the government in a position where we had no option but to bring forward a separate bill that in fact sought to give effect to what the Labor Party actually wanted and what could have been achieved if they had allowed their own amendments to the original legislation to be moved in committee.

I read a fictional account in a newspaper of a meeting that Minister Andrews and I had with Jenny Macklin. The account said that Minister Andrews and I looked at each other in a surprised way, realising for the first time that the bill was not going to proceed and could in fact have been introduced in a separate form originally that Minister Macklin could have supported. That was complete bunkum. The Senate committee report that the Labor Party contributed to simply made clear those elements that they would support and those elements that they would not support. It did not say, 'We will only support the elements of the budget that we agree to if they are packaged in a particular way.' It did not say that. In fact, it is common in this place that bills get sliced and diced and provisions get deleted, which we thought would be the course in this place and in fact which we assumed the Labor Party thought would be the approach, given they themselves circulated amendments. The Labor Party did not allow those amendments to be moved and that is why we find ourselves in this place. So, when the Labor Party say, 'The government could have had these measures passed through this place much earlier if only they had done what we wanted,' we in fact tried to do what the Labor Party wanted, but they would not let us, which is why we are in this place. I do not put blame for that at the feet of Senator Moore, the Manager of Opposition Business in this place, because I know that she endeavours to work practically and cooperatively wherever she can. I lay the blame at Ms Macklin, over in the other place, for being, as I think is the technical term, sheer bloody-minded in relation to this matter. It is true that these particular budget measures could already have been passed if Ms Macklin in the other place had actually allowed her Senate colleagues to move the amendments that they themselves had circulated. If Ms Macklin had allowed the previous bill to be read a second time and if Ms Macklin had allowed the circulated amendments to be moved in the committee stage then these budget measures would have been passed some time ago.

I think we are now at a point where we are getting excruciatingly close to having the opportunity to vote on this legislation. With those few remarks, I will conclude the second reading debate.