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

Thanks. I had forgotten her already. So it is a rather strange debate.

I want to again ask the minister and perhaps Senator Rhiannon, as she has found her voice, why we should be supporting these amendments. I will be, as I say, subsequently moving amendments, the parliament having not agreed with my amendment on removing retrospectivity and not agreeing with what was effectively my amendment moved by Senator Rhiannon to include former prime ministers in the ban of the Life Gold Pass.

With the next lot of amendments I will be moving, the parliament having decided that former prime ministers should get the benefit of the Life Gold Pass but that it should not be available to former treasurers, foreign ministers or health ministers, I ask: why then shouldn't we limit the entitlements of former prime ministers to in some way be commensurate with the length of service they gave? Ms Gillard and Mr Rudd were there for a relatively short time—the same with Mr Abbott. It seems inappropriate that they should have the same entitlements as someone who served for 10 years or more as Mr Howard did, most of that time with great success as a Prime Minister of Australia.

I am disappointed that the government—my government and the government I support—has not been able to explain why it is that, although the legislation from the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet which says that provisions that have a retrospective operation adversely affecting on rights and imposing liability are to be included only in exceptional circumstances, that should be ignored. No-one has explained why the basic Liberal Party tenet of opposition to retrospectivity should be cast aside in this instance. The legislative principle that is often articulated is that citizens are entitled to regulate their affairs on the assumption that current circumstances are substantially settled. That is why, in the case of the superannuation debate that we all remember late last year, I indicated to my Treasurer that if the two retrospective elements of that legislation were to be included I would be crossing the floor and voting against it. I am glad the Treasurer took that on—not just because of me; there were others who told him the same. We all understand that retrospective legislation is bad because people plan their lives on the basis of the law as it is. I know former politicians. I know all of them.

Senator Hanson at the beginning of her speech on the second reading read out what some people who responded to her survey said about politicians. I think it was about the Life Gold Pass. Senator Hanson, I say to you that if the question had been not about the Life Gold Pass but rather, 'What do you think about politicians getting $200,000 a year?' I guarantee you would have got exactly the same answers from all of those people who paid out on the Life Gold Pass. That is the way it is. It would not matter if we were paid nothing: people would still hate us.

People do not have the benefit that we do, particularly ministers, of good advice in understanding issues perhaps a little bit more closely than the headlines they receive in the popular press. Perhaps 'popular press' is not quite appropriate these days. People are leaving the media in droves and going to more responsible, direct information from the source, as President Trump has indicated is appropriate.

But my point is that it does not matter. Just because the group that is being disadvantaged is a group that nobody likes, that does not make it right. It does not make it right. Nobody has been able to—