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

I do not want to keep the chamber very long. I think it is important that we try to, at least, give some certainty about what is happening here. I want to make a couple of points. I see that Senator Williams has joined us in the chamber, and I heard some of the Labor speakers, or perhaps it was Senator Muir, talking about the big banks and the government bending over to them. The government and government senators have been, perhaps, the most assiduous in chasing the big banks and making sure that they do the right thing. Senator Williams, I want to congratulate you on the work you have done in that regard.

Right from the beginning I have been involved in this through friends, very often, and colleagues, or people I know who were impacted by Storm Financial, which I am embarrassed to say emanated out of Townsville, the place where I have my office. I have spoken to hundreds of people. I have spoken at public meetings. In fact, in one of the early public meetings before other senators even became aware of this, I remember speaking to 500 people, who were in various stages of great distress, about what happened with Storm. I remember saying publicly then, 'Banks like the Commonwealth Bank need to look at this, because in the global financial crisis it was the government, that is, the Australian taxpayer, who gave them the guarantees that allowed them to continue.'

At that time it was pretty touch and go that some of the Australian banks might have been in some trouble. The taxpayers, through the government at the time, came in and helped them out. I made a public statement to any bank that was listening, 'We helped you, and now is the time for you to repay the taxpayers by not standing on the letter of the law but by helping people out.' Over a period of time, thanks to many people—and again I mention Senator Williams, and Senator Cormann in a different capacity—some of the banks have done, partly, the right thing. I just want to raise that to refute the suggestion that this is a government that is beholden to the big banks.

I want to say to those two senators, who looked at this very carefully over the period of time when these measures were being very closely looked at, that I assume those senators understood what was being put to them. As I understood it those senators said: 'Look, we think you're generally on the right track, but we want this done, we want this done and we want this done, and we're prepared to sign our names to that. If you do these things that we want you to do, we'll support you.' So, Senator Cormann, as I understand it, did not what Senator Muir and Senator Lambie asked of him. That was the deal. Senator Lambie and Senator Muir said: 'We don't like this, we don't like this and we don't like this. If you fix those up we'll support this.' So, Senator Cormann went out believing that these people were honourable people and actually did that. It cost, I think, a bit of money and a bit of rearrangement of things. Senator Cormann performed his part of the deal.

If I could say to those two senators: it would be like this—and this is a hypothetical if one senator were making her mark in the world because of the alleged maltreatment of the pay of Defence Force personnel—if I were the Prime Minister and went up to that person and said, 'Look, I understand your issue. I promise you we will double their salaries, but I want you to vote for our legislation to do that.' So, that senator said, 'Okay, I'll vote for this legislation today, that legislation tomorrow and that legislation the next day,' and then voted for all the government legislation. Then the government said, 'Oh, well, look, I know we promised we'd double the money, but we have a different view on life now. I know we made that solemn promise with you, but, sorry, you've done your part of the deal, you voted with this. We're fine. Now we've just decided that we're not going to bother about doing what we promised we'd do for you.' How would any senator here feel if that happened? They would not be very happy at all, because you deal with governments and you deal with senators on the basis that they are honourable people. It was not just a deal, and I do not like using the word 'deal', it was a discussion that said, 'We’re almost there with you, but we don't like this, this and this.' Then the government goes away and fixes this, this and this, which costs money. So the government would well expect then that the other party would do their part of the deal.

Here, today, for reasons which we can only guess about, it is not happening. It is not too late. I would appeal to the honour of those senators involved to stick by the agreement, because the government has done its deal with you. Can I repeat, if we say: 'We're going to double the pay of the Army, and we know that you're vitally interested in that. We know that you're totally committed to that.' The senators say: 'Okay, you've won us. We're going to do it.' So you immediately start voting with the government on everything, even things you do not agree with. But you do your bit and then in six months' time when the issue comes up the government says, 'Ah, sorry, we've changed our mind.' How would any senator feel?