Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

It may or may not be your view, but the facts are that the changes to below-the-line voting were not part of their original indications—of course, unless they were aware of your original intentions in the House, but I think you would find that hard to justify given your earlier arguments. But the point is that the indications that the AEC would have been talking to us about during that hearing were on the bill as it came out of the House of Representatives, before you had made this decision to accept the recommendations of the inquiry which dealt with the below-the-line voting issues. So these changes to how Australians will vote in the Senate below the line, which were not part of your original proposal, were not part of what the AEC was dealing with when it appeared before JSCEM. Let's look, again, at my point about what Mr Rogers says:

Should the bill change significantly, the AEC will need to revise its timing, cost and other resource estimates.

I would like to know whether that revision has occurred and I would like to know the nature of that revision, because the evidence from the AEC to the committee was that changes during the legislative progress would have implications for their initial indications. In fact, I would like to see their initial indications.

Going back to the very poor response to the return to order and the farce of a committee inquiry: material that should have been before the committee and that should be before individual senators about how this process is to occur has not been available. You might like to characterise it as 'micromanagement', but these are basic issues around how much time is required for the AEC and what the resourcing implications are of these changes. If I go to the very issues that Mr Rogers was highlighting, then what is the indicative advice on those matters? These are not things that we should have to wait for Senate estimates to do post facto. These are things that any decent government should be able to make available to the Senate. There is no reason for commercial-in-confidence or even cabinet considerations for why we should not be able to see what the non-partisan AEC's indications are about how they need to progress with the legislation as proposed.

I asked you earlier and I still really have not got an adequate response, other than some flippant remark that I should look at the Hansard, as to what the issue or the problem or the harm is in relation to making available that type of information. I think it is astounding, Minister, the response that you are taking to a fairly routine and general question about how a matter will proceed. This takes me to my next point, because I sat here while Senator Di Natale—who has now gone, unfortunately; I was hoping he would still be sitting in the back there when I got to this point—said, 'Let's talk substance.' Seriously! I have never sat in this place—and I remember even Senator Bob Brown. What I think Senator Di Natale has is what I would call doctor syndrome. He is not used to being challenged. He does not think that he should be subject to inquiry, and unfortunately his ignorance and Senator Rhiannon's self-interest and ineptitude have allowed this government to lead you along by the nose. Basic substantive matters that should have been addressed, either in their backdoor negotiations or in the committee stage consideration, have not been—basic issues.

So, as a result of your poor management, we have no transparency. We now have a minister here who is quite happy to sit here and say: 'I'm not going to tell you about resourcing. We have said we will resource the AEC, so we will and you can ask us about it in estimates later.' I cannot understand or conceive how some of the more seasoned Greens senators have swallowed this. I really cannot understand how senators who have participated in a range of issues in this place in the past—I referred to Senator Ludlam when I was talking about return to order matters as one example—can allow this government not even to indicate the harm. They turn their noses up at even indicating the harm of providing basic information—information the AEC told us they had provided to government. Let us go back to that point. The AEC indicated that they had provided indicative advice on costings and resource implications. They also told us about the timing implications of the changes.

At this stage, I will try again because I have not been more specific in other areas and failed, but let us try this one again. Has advice been sought from the AEC in relation to the government's 'decision' to accept the recommendations of JSCEM 2016? Have the AEC been consulted about what the indicative cost resource implications of those changes are? Have they been asked what time frame issues arise as a consequence? If so, what was their response?