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

Mr Chairman, either you had an uncharacteristically soft voice today or the microphone wasn't on, and I suspect it was the latter. I had some other questions I wanted to ask. I did want to ask some of Senator Polley, and I know my colleague Senator Paterson did too. But, in this day and age, it's typical of the Labor Party and their hypocrisy. Do you remember a couple of weeks ago when we had all this confected outrage about gagging debate when the government didn't actually gag debate; it just put some sensible time limits on the debate? There was outrage from the Labor Party and the Greens, and yet, as we've just seen today, when it suits the Labor Party and the Greens, they'll gag anyone from speaking. Particularly in a case such as this where it is quite a complex bill and senators do have serious questions to ask about the complexity of these bills, the Labor Party and the Greens, again, join to curtail debate.

Of course, it reminds me of the time a few years ago when, regrettably, we were in opposition and the Labor Party and Greens political party were in charge of the government of the land. We had, if I remember correctly—what was it?—57 gags in one week on bills that the then Labor-Greens government wanted to promote. That's bad enough, but what really concerns me is the confected outrage when the government, which is trying to deal with important legislation that it has to get through, puts a time limit on bills. We had motion after motion and points of order after points of order from the Labor Party and the Greens political party about that time management, and yet, with the ultimate hypocrisy, they now move gags and suddenly all of their moral indignation seems to disappear.

I divert myself from the bill just to express my concern at the hypocrisy of the Labor Party and the Greens political party when it comes to curtailment of debate. I expect that sort of thing from the Labor Party. The Greens are always so morally outraged when that happens when it's the government time managing the bill, but they seem to lose that moral high ground when it comes to the question of the Greens and the Labor Party trying to curtail debate on something that other senators want to inquire further.

I wanted to ask the minister why it is that this sales suppression software hasn't already been banned. I think the minister answered in a question from my colleague Senator Paterson earlier about the existence of the software that it cannot be used for anything else but to falsely indicate what income an entity is making.

I did ask the minister previously—although I'm not sure if you answered, Minister—about what types of people were propagating, distributing and retailing this software. They may be questions that you don't have the answers to, Minister, but it's certainly fascinating to think on whether they are bikie gangs or whether they're some of the more radical unions who some allege are involved in criminal activities. I don't know whether that's right, but I do see that alleged at times. I was wondering if you did have any information on that.

I'm also curious as to the cost of this sort of software—again, you may not have this information, Minister—and whether the software itself was patented in such a way that whoever discovered, manufactured or wrote the software was the only person able to do that or whether others could do it. But they're perhaps side issues.

Minister, my principle question to you is: why wasn't the sales suppression software banned previously? Has it not been known of previously? Or is this just a recent phenomenon?