Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion and on the amendment put by my colleague Senator Collins regarding the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016. To say that the level of scrutiny that has been given to this bill is farcical is actually something of an understatement. I would like to say at the outset that I support and concur with the contribution by Senator Collins here today about the level of scrutiny and the farcical situation that has been undertaken by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters on this bill.

We had the inquiry—if you want to call it an inquiry—on this bill this morning. This morning's hearing was, as Senator Collins said, unlike any other inquiry that we have been involved in. We had the farcical situation where questions were put to the AEC that they were unable to answer. Their answer was, 'You need to talk to the department.' Senator Collins has already outlined to the Senate and those listening to this debate the length to which Labor senators went to request the department—it was not an outrageous or unusual request—come to answer questions. But that request was shut down and, in many respects, not even responded to by the chair of the committee. Of course, the coalition and Greens members on the committee chose to not allow the department to come to answer very significant questions on this bill.

The other point that needs to be made on the inquiry that we just had is to do with questions that were taken on notice. Again, there was not even a procedure put in place by the chair of the committee as to when questions on notice should come back to the committee. Questions on notice are a normal process in Senate committees, both legislation and references committees. They are just part of the normal work of a committee. But at this inquiry there was not even an attempt to have questions on notice responded to. We have been told that we may get those responses in time for an 8 am meeting tomorrow to consider the draft report into this piece of legislation.

When Senator Collins talked about the need for greater scrutiny of this bill, she also meant actual scrutiny. It is not good enough to point to a JSCEM report on the 2013 election because what we have before us here is not what was recommended. It has cherry picked parts out of that report on the 2013 federal election. A deal has been done between the coalition and the Greens in this place on what they would like to see. It is not about allowing the Senate and the public to have a greater understanding of what is actually being put before us in this piece of legislation. It is not about that. They can pretend it is about that, but the inquiry clearly showed, I believe, that that is not what it is about. They have cherry picked parts of it. They have put in a section about logos that was not even recommended in the JSCEM report. I do not know who brought that up. It might have been in a discussion between the Liberal Party secretariat, the National Party secretariat and the Prime Minister's office. That is in there, but it was not recommended. Even today when questions were asked about that, primarily by the coalition senators, there were not any details around how that might work. There was nothing at all. So this has been a complete subversion of the Senate process, and it undermines the role of the Senate in this place.

In recent months many of us on this side of the chamber have pointed out that changing the leader of the Liberal Party has actually changed nothing. The conservative and self-interested policies of the Abbott government continue under the Turnbull government. In contrast, we can look at the Australian Greens and see just how much can change with a change of leadership. It was a party that under former Senator Bob Brown and former Senator Milne on many occasions made grand speeches about the importance of Senate oversight and proper consideration. Now, under Senator Di Natale or, in this case, Senator Rhiannon, we know that the Australian Greens have no respect for the role of this place. They have no respect for the processes that we have.

What we are seeing now is a deal that has clearly been cooked up over months. It is not something that has been neatly settled in the last couple of weeks. Behind closed doors, with no transparency, it has been cooked up to benefit the Greens and the coalition. It is a deal that has been cooked up to subvert the Senate processes and give the Turnbull government the quick out it wants for a double dissolution election.

This is not about the need for urgent reform. If it were, the government would have brought a bill before this place sometime in the last two years. This is not about the procedures we have in this place. Make no mistake: this is not about reform or democracy. Ramming this bill through parliament is about political expedience. This is about what is politically convenient for the Liberals and the Greens. I would throw in the Nats, but I think they just go along with anything. It is most definitely not about the role of this place as a house of review.

The role of the Senate as house of review is to be able to go to the electorate and talk about legislation and to come back better informed, with amendments and with a government that is able to take them into account. None of that is happening here. This is just a directive from the Prime Minister's office which says, 'Clear the slate on Thursday night or Friday and get us out of here so that we can get ready for an election.'

These are not my words but rather the words of the former leader of the Australian Greens, Bob Brown. They are words he spoke in this place in defence of the Senate—words which have very real meaning in this place today. However, these words obviously do not have any meaning to the Australian Greens we now have under the leadership of Senator Di Natale and Senator Rhiannon. They have similarly forgotten the words of their last leader, former Senator Christine Milne, who said in this place:

The Australian people deserve a house of review. A house of review means appropriate scrutiny of legislation and appropriate scrutiny of governments. You achieve that through estimates committees, through Senate references committees and through Senate legislation committees.

Again, this is a lesson that has been lost on the Greens who now sit in this place.

Anyone who has been following this farce of a process would also know that the bill that was presented in the House of Representatives has already been amended by the government. So quick were they in their haste to get this dirty deal out of the back room and onto the table of the House of Representatives that they have already had to amend it. And it appears that the AEC, from what I can gather from their evidence, have not really had much to do with drafting this legislation. By the time the government ram it through the Senate here, who knows how much will have already been amended.

This is the problem. There has been no scrutiny and no transparency. There has been a deal cooked up by the coalition and the Greens and it is already starting to unravel by way of the fact that it needs amendments. This has not been done properly. There has been no scrutiny and there has been no regard whatsoever for the Australian community. The government have not gone out to talk about it in the community. The Greens have not gone out to talk about it. No-one has even bothered to put up a semblance of pretence that there is going to be proper scrutiny.

As I have said a number of times here, because it needs to be said often and loudly, the Greens have stitched up a deal with the Liberal government to avoid proper scrutiny of the most significant changes to our democratic process in 30 years. This is not about what is best for our democracy. In fact, we cannot even say what is best for our democracy or what the true impact of the proposal being brought before us is, because the government refuse to allow us the time to scrutinise this proposed legislation. They have done the deal with the Greens and Senator Xenophon. It is a deal that will see this legislation rammed through this place with only a pretence of consideration by the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. That has played out. That is the reality. That is what we saw this morning.

Our colleagues in the other place were forced to vote on the bill before they even saw the outcome of the sham hearing of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. They were not even allowed the time to read the joint standing committee report before they actually had to vote on this proposed legislation—which, as I have said, is the most significant change to our democratic process in over 30 years. The government and the Greens have seen fit to give the appearance of allowing senators an opportunity to consider the bill and the evidence of the hearing that was held this morning. It was, I think, 3½ hours of a farcical meeting with rotating questions. It was a hearing at which members of the committee had just 3½ hours. The most important part of what happened this morning is the fact that the government—and the committee chair, along with the other coalition and Greens members—would not allow the appropriate departments to come and give evidence. Those questions that committee members wanted to ask were not able to be asked. Some of the questions were asked of the AEC, as I have said, but they did not have the information to be able to answer those questions. They referred them and told us that it would be a matter for the finance committee.

If we hear the minister that is responsible for this legislation get up to say, 'We have had the JSCEM report of the inquiry into the conduct of the 2013 election and we have had an inquiry into the legislation before us now,' it is just a farce. People who are listening to this debate should know that it is a complete and utter farce and that the process the government has set out has been explicitly designed to control the debate, to shut down the debate and to ensure scrutiny is at a minimum.

This bill cherry picks elements of the recommendations made in the JSCEM report of the inquiry into the conduct of the 2013 election. But we are not going to have an opportunity to really examine the implications of this bill. If we are all honest with ourselves, we cannot say that we are surprised by the actions of the government. In the last two years, we have seen their complete contempt for the Senate. This government have shown themselves to be completely unable to manage their legislative agenda. They have shown themselves to be completely unable to negotiate. They have shown themselves to be completely unable to prosecute an argument for the changes they have sought to make—which is no shock, given the changes they have sought. They have shown themselves as having complete contempt for the Senate, its role and its procedures.

For a moment, I was surprised by the Greens—and Senator Xenophon—being complicit in this, until I remembered the Greens track record when it comes to negotiating with the government. And I remembered that, to put it simply, the Greens are not very good at making deals: their bargaining powers have already been found wanting. We saw this when they made a deal with the government on multinational tax transparency. We had the numbers on this issue—we could have got a better deal on tax transparency—but the Greens folded. They folded and let 500 companies off the hook. And yet again we have seen the Greens roll over to have their tummies scratched by the Liberal government.

I am sure many members of the Australian Greens are wondering when their party became opposed to open and transparent debate. Their own members would be asking when this became a bad thing. Given the Greens record under the leadership of Senator Di Natale, you would think that they would be getting better at cutting deals with the Liberal government. It is something we have seen them doing a lot. As I just outlined, the Greens voted with the government to let big companies keep secret how much tax they pay. They voted to defeat Labor amendments requiring large private companies making more than $100 million in profits to publicly disclose how much tax they pay. But this is just the start.

The Greens also voted with the government in the Senate to cut age pensions by $2.4 billion. They actually voted to pass Mr Abbott's and Mr Hockey's budget measures to cut the age pension to 330,000 elderly Australians. Senator Di Natale's Greens voted with the Liberals to erect new barriers against investment by reducing Foreign Investment Review Board screening thresholds for proposed investments in agriculture and agribusiness. They voted for legislation allowing the health minister to make multimillion dollar medical research funding decisions without following the recommendations of the independent expert advisory body. And the list goes on. Now the Greens have done a dud deal, behind closed doors, with the government to change the Senate voting system. It is a deal that will disenfranchise voters. Some people have estimated that three million Australians vote for parties other than the coalition, Labor and the Greens. This deal is all to help the government call an early double dissolution election.

All of this is not to say that there are not issues with our current electoral system, issues that do need to be addressed. But they should not be addressed in this way, through a piece of legislation that has been rammed through the House of Representatives, that has been rammed through a quick and dirty inquiry this morning, prior to the JSCEM delivering its report, only to see it come into the Senate to again be rammed through. There is no transparency; there is no concern about going out to the community to ask their view. This is about the Greens and the government doing a deal with no concern or care for Australian democracy.