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

In my long time in this chamber I have heard a number of speeches that were dripping with hypocrisy and insincerity, but the one I heard this morning from the Leader of the Opposition on a formal motion—a procedural motion relating to the same subject—just about took the cake. I want to explain to those who might be listening to the debate what the coalition's position is. It starts from the premise that, if you are a member of the Liberal and National parties, you go to an election and make a promise, and you make the promise intending that promise to be kept. This subject of same-sex marriage is one that I know raises a lot of emotions on both sides of the debate, and I understand the emotion that is engendered on both sides of the debate.

But this is an issue that has been around for some time and the coalition have a policy on it. We went to the last election saying that the definition of marriage would stay the same as it is in the Marriage Act for this term of parliament, and that is the commitment we took to the Australian people. I remember that, at the time, the coalition thought long and hard about that policy. We were petitioned by the church groups, if I can loosely label them as that. They had very, very strong views on it and they made a point which resonated with the coalition as a whole. We decided to go to the last election with this commitment to retain the definition of marriage as it is in the Marriage Act.

I know Labor senators find it hard to believe that a political party would make a promise, intending to keep it, and then actually keep it. I know that is foreign to the Australian Labor Party. We all remember the promise by the Labor Party: 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' Having been elected on that promise, what was the first thing that an Australian Labor government did when it took the reins? It introduced a carbon tax—the direct opposite of what they had promised before the election. That is not a one-off.

In the last few days, I have raised a number of times the Keating Labor Party's l-a-w law tax reductions. Remember that? Some senators might have been around then, as I was. Thinking they were going to lose the next election, Mr Keating and the Labor Party actually legislated for tax cuts before the election. It was passed and Mr Keating said: 'It's l-a-w law. These tax cuts will happen. They have been legislated.' Low and behold, unexpectedly, Mr Keating and the Labor Party won that election. What was the first thing that they did, the first legislative program that they indulged in on being returned to government? It was to renege, to cancel, to abolish that bill giving what was then called the l-a-w law tax cuts.

The Labor Party have form when it comes to making promises and then doing the exact opposite when they come to power. Take the current issue of electoral reform. Two years ago, I sat on the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters and we looked at the issue of the rort—the dishonesty of the Senate voting system at the time. That committee travelled all around Australia. It took evidence from everybody who wanted to have a say and it took evidence from some very clever academic people, people who understand the voting system.

The committee deliberated long and hard and it came to a unanimous conclusion. Firstly, I will just explain that the committee comprised Liberal, National, Labor, Greens, Xenophon and anyone else who wanted to go along. I was not a formal member of that committee but, under the rules we have in the Senate, any senator can become a participating member, with all the powers and privileges of the committee. I put myself onto that committee because I was interested in the issues. As a senator who has been around for a while and as a Queenslander, I wanted to make sure that when the people of Queensland cast a vote for the Senate, they were actually making the choice themselves, not putting 1 in a box and then letting the various political parties to determine where the preferences go.

I well recall at the time Mr Katter, the member for Kennedy—who had been a member of the National Party but had left the National Party and become an Independent—telling people that he was still our way inclined, that he did not like some of the things that were happening so he had left the party to became an Independent. But he indicated to people, 'If you vote for me, I'll be okay and my preferences will go to my old party'—by then the Liberal National Party of Queensland. We then looked at the Katter Party voting ticket that he had registered and, low and behold, who got the preferences?