Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to say a few words on this matter, since I am the deputy chair of the committee and there has been no consultation with the committee—none!

I'm not known as a person who does not commit fully to my job. I believe that my record throughout this last year of the pandemic has been equal to anyone's in terms of my attendance. This committee has a very heavy workload and we have, I believe, fulfilled it conscientiously and not sought to duck our responsibilities to this chamber. Now we're being told, without consultation, that irrespective of what we're doing at the moment we can do this bill over the Christmas break.

It would seem that everyone else in this place, in this building, is entitled to spend some time with their families and is entitled to enjoy some respite from the hurly-burly of this place apart from the members of this committee, who haven't been spoken to. If anyone were to suggest that this was a simple matter, that this was legislation that can be dismissed with the papers, they would be sorely mistaken. Given that the government has taken the better part of three years, and many attempts, to get it into some sort of shape, I would have thought that they would at least have the courtesy of talking to the people who are now expected to actually undertake the parliamentary review of it on behalf of the chamber.

An opposition senator interjecting—

No, I haven't started on that! In the last two days that the documents have been available there has been a flurry of information being provided concerned with this bill. That's because it's not just a question of the rights of the religious it's also a question of the secular community, and we're discovering that there are different points of view about that. And what would we expect if we're going to start to prioritise human rights—if we're going to say that some people have rights at the expense of others? Of course there's going to be a major dispute about that! Do those opposite think they can just sweep that under the carpet—just slide that away over the Christmas holidays and that no-one will notice? Well, think again!

It is a gross abuse of this chamber and of the processes of this chamber to try to pull a swiftie like this. I expect nothing less, I suppose, in some sense, that a controversial matter like this has taken so long to resolve within the Liberal Party or the National Party. And yet they expect us all to sign up to it. That's not going to happen! There has to be a proper process to allow people in this community to have a view about things and express them properly. And we have to have time for members of this committee to be able to make an assessment of those views and report back to this chamber in a proper manner.

They're saying 1 February: they're treating this parliament with contempt to suggest that that's going to be an adequate time to examine the complexity of this issue. In my own state, there are going to be views expressed about whether or not these matters are in fact legal. I have read numerous reports in the press today as to whether or not this matter should be subject to a High Court challenge. There are varying views within religious communities about these matters. But the government expect us to just tick and flick a matter of this importance over the Christmas holidays?

That is the contempt at the heart of this—the contempt for everybody in this place. Those who think there's a quick, easy settlement here are buying themselves so much trouble that they don't begin to imagine and that couldn't begin to be fixed by a sleazy, slimy little arrangement like this. That's what it is. (Time expired)