Rex Patrick (SA, Centre Alliance) Share this | Hansard source

I intend to move an amendment to the motion to omit paragraphs (b) and (c). The Centre Alliance is no stranger to standing order 142. I was here in the chamber on 20 June and listened to how people were absolutely disgusted that the government would deploy such a tactic. I'm not walking away from the fact that we supported that at the time, but I point out it was a tactic that basically sought to guillotine the committee stage of a bill. In this instance, we have a couple of bills that are going to be debated and put through the chamber this morning, and there's a risk that one of them won't even get a second reading debate. Something that the Centre Alliance doesn't support at all—in any way, shape or form—is the gagging of second reading debates.

I move as an amendment:

Omit paragraphs (b) and (c).

I do this without the theatrics and without any histrionic contribution. I just simply want to make it very clear that to allow only two hours for these two important bills is extremely problematic.

Let's talk about the Government Procurement (Judicial Review) Bill 2017. That bill is, of course, enabling legislation for the TPP. The TPP is a significant agreement that has been worked on for a decade. The only opportunity the parliament gets to deal with this particular bill—and I know that people on the Labor side of the Senate support me in saying this, because our treaty process is so broken and there have been so many recommendations about how to change it—and the only chance this parliament really gets to have a say in any of the treaties that we sign up to is when it comes to enabling legislation. That's what we're dealing with here.

Yesterday and the day before we dealt with customs bills. Today we are being asked to consider at the committee stage the judicial review bill. I tell the minister that I have a number of very detailed questions that go absolutely to the bill and an understanding of how the bill is written, how it would affect Australian companies and how it would affect the procurement process. I'd like the opportunity to ask those in a calm, civilised, unpressured environment. I know that Senator Whish-Wilson has some questions, as does Senator Hanson-Young, relating to other elements of the TPP, understanding that a consequence of passing that bill is that the TPP will come into force. I've made the chamber well aware of our concerns with that—the first concern being that there are ISDS provisions in that bill.

On ISDS provisions: I understand the argument from the government. They say that they protect Australian companies. But, unfortunately, the bill has an adverse effect here in Australia. We've seen the case of Philip Morris. Philip Morris brought an action against Australia in relation to tobacco plain packaging. They did so after the tobacco companies challenged this parliament in our High Court as to whether the legislation that enabled the tobacco plain packaging to come into effect was lawful. They challenged that in our High Court, and they lost—they lost. They then set up a company in Hong Kong and sought to use the ISDS provisions in that arrangement that we had between Hong Kong and Australia. Just so the chamber is clear, Centre Alliance supported Australia in opposing that particular ISDS claim. Indeed the Commonwealth, rightly, argued that the tribunal was without jurisdiction, because Philip Morris had set up the company in Hong Kong specifically for the purposes of initiating ISDS, and the tribunal found that it did not have jurisdiction in that case. So Australia was successful in that.

But the taxpayer, unfortunately, was made to bear the cost of that case. The government, for well over two years, tried to keep the cost of that case secret. They were asked at estimates, and they made claims about cabinet in confidence. I note that there are a lot of cabinet-in-confidence claims being made around this chamber and, indeed, across the Senate committee rooms. Most of them are very flawed and most of them undermine the doctrine. Nonetheless, former Senator Xenophon and I beat down that claim until the department recognised that they were on a loser. They then switched to international relations and said, 'Well, we can't do this because it will damage international relations.' Finally, when the Information Commissioner ruled in favour of former Senator Xenophon, the department took it to the AAT, spending more taxpayers' money to try and prevent us finding out how much that cost. The Productivity Commission had, somehow, guessed $50 million but we now know the truth. It was $39 million—$39 million in legal fees as a result of an action raised under ISDS.

What the ISDS provisions seek to do is take the sovereign risk that is borne by corporations and pass that risk to the taxpayer. I understand why the Liberal Party might want to do that; because they don't want their corporate donors to have any sovereign risk. They'd rather that that risk sit with the taxpayer; the taxpayer who has to pay for it out of some budget that would otherwise go to support the social structure of this country.

We are highly offended by the ISDS. I know the government once again says, 'No, it's good,' but even the Europeans are walking away from it. President Trump has removed it from the NAFTA. Other very solid jurisdictions that don't have crazy leaders or do strange things are walking away from ISDS. It's actually part of the Labor Party national platform not to support trade deals with ISDS, yet we've seen at least six occasions over the last couple of days where Labor have voted against their own national platform.

The other area of concern is labour market testing. We have traversed this topic in the past few days, but it applies also to the Government Procurement (Judicial Review) Bill 2017, because it now is the last thing that stands in the way of the TPP-11 agreement coming into force for this country. The waiving of that labour market testing will allow foreign companies to bring workers into Australia without having to test to find out whether or not there is some Australian worker who can do that job. We may have electricians come in from overseas who don't even understand some of our wiring rules, so it's not just about workers; it's also about safety. I know this because I've listened to what the unions have had to say, through the media and through submissions that they've made.

Once again, I find it totally disturbing that the Labor Party, who have a fundamental objection to the waiving of labour market testing, yesterday on numerous occasions voted to allow that to occur. One Nation were against it. The Greens were against it. Centre Alliance had pronounced that it would not support it. That left it to Labor. Labor had the choice. They could have rejected this. We are not saying: walk away from the TPP. We just need to cut the cancer out. In fact, we even put up a motion yesterday that would allow the TPP to enter into effect but sunset, so that we would make it very clear to foreign nations that indeed the Labor Party were committed to removing this, and the enabling legislation would expire on 1 January 2020. But they didn't want to vote for that. They've done a deal with the coalition, just as they've done a deal here to try to shut down discussion. So we do need to have a solid committee stage for the judicial review bill.

The other bill that we are being asked to consider is the Treasury Laws Amendment (Lower Taxes for Small and Medium Businesses) Bill 2018. I want to put on the record that Centre Alliance supports this bill. However, we have to ask: what's the urgency? Why do we have to get it through the parliament today?