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

We could, but it is a ludicrous situation because, in terms of considering a piece of legislation, the minister has failed several times now to address important general questions about how these provisions will operate. For anyone who is still listening to this discussion at this hour of the night, the really concerning thing about that is not so much that we are still here now at almost 3.30 at night getting no satisfaction on very important questions; instead, it is that it is happening here under these circumstances that are part of the government-Greens fix. Important questions about how people can campaign in Senate elections in the future cannot or will not be answered by this minister. I think that is a very important to highlight so that anyone who is listening does not continue to hear this little voice harping, 'Can't we get on to substantive matters, and can't you narrow yourselves to the first amendment?' which is just ludicrous.

What it really highlights is the hunger that the Greens and the government have to break their word, to not be here till Easter—as the minister assured us he was prepared to be—and to try to ram this legislation through without adequate consideration. I think that the discussion on this particular issue, which Senator Day says does relate to his amendment and which we will eventually get through as we start moving through amendments, highlights exactly that point. But it is not the only one, Senator Day, I am afraid to say. There are a range of other general issues that have been raised so far that the government is refusing to provide adequate policy rationale for, and I have reflected in the past that I am astounded that these are issues that the Greens just swallowed. But now is the time to highlight where the government has failed to provide adequate policy rationale for this fix.

Senator Ian Macdonald interjecting—

The government may think it is adequate at 3.30 in the evening to have Senator Macdonald sit here and try to bully me while I make a contribution—

Senator Cash interjecting—

Senator Cash says she does not think anyone is really listening—so it does not matter! The sad thing is that the last time the government tried this, they eventually realised it was not a good look—after about five hours, I think—and it all went away. They might want to consider that approach again, because there are still a range of general substantive matters that need to be addressed in relation to this bill.

I would be happy to talk about the government's first amendment if that would make them feel happy. I would be happy to make a contribution that dealt with all of it, but it is not going to make those general questions go away. They will still arise at some stage over the course of this debate. We have covered some of them but nowhere near all of them. Some of them we will get to again when we look at the amendments that relate to timing—and there are several of those. Is the minister, and are the Greens, actually suggesting we should deal with the various amendments put forward about the timing of the implementation of these measures one by one? Is that the suggestion? What is the justification for Senator Whish-Wilson or Senator Ludlam sitting there and saying, 'You have to talk to the amendment'? Senator Ludlam at least knows how legislation processes work.

Before we go into any detail on the government's nine amendments, we need to highlight, as has been done by Senator Conroy, the minister's failure to respond on this question about unlawful behaviour to Senator Conroy, to Senator Wang, to me, to Senator Day, to Senator Lambie or to Senator Muir—because it is an inadequate response from the government, an extremely inadequate response. I notice that the minister has not gone back to saying, 'You cannot ask us to respond on whether behaviour would be lawful or not.' Fancy asking that in consideration of a bill! How outrageous! That was his first response. I know that response did not come from the advisers box. I know he just plucked that one out of the air. That is no way to proceed with legislative reform, no way at all. But it does highlight the chaos that has been this government's approach to dealing with this and some of the other matters that other senators have raised during this process.

Another area of non-answer that senators will recall is that of the resources that will be available to the AEC—and they will recall the government's failure to respond to the Senate's return to order on that. Again we had Senator Cormann's typical response—'I am being misrepresented'—when I was complaining that he was trying to claim that the issue was commercial-in-confidence without highlighting what the harm might be. He was trying to use that as a reason to not even give ballpark figures for what resources the AEC would need to implement these changes—which are the most significant changes in 30 years to how we vote for the Senate.

The more amusing answer to that issue—and I think it was in response to another senator, not me—was: 'Wait until estimates.' The minister's response to those legitimate questions before the Senate was to tell us that we should deal with them post facto in estimates! We might as well not deal with legislation in this place. Let us imagine this new world, that the Greens have helped construct, where the government has the balance of power in the Senate. They will not have to deal with pesky committee stage considerations. Hell no, they can go back to what they did after 2004 and just ram things through.

The amusing part of them just ramming things through, however, is the lesson that at least John Howard learned from the Work Choices experience.

An opposition senator interjecting—

Eventually he learned it—that is right. In the enthusiasm arising out of having the balance of power, they put through measures that this government would have put through in the 2014 budget had they been able to—and now they will be able to, thanks to the Greens

They would have put those measures through, but the lesson that John Howard learnt, of course, was: he went too far, and the Australian public responded and booted them out. This was despite the fact that they had already backflipped, but a bit too late, on Work Choices. They had done their backflip but it was too late to impact on the public opinion about the excessive changes that they had allowed to occur to our fair workplace relations system.