Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I welcome the opportunity to make some remarks in response to the Governor-General's statement at the opening of the parliament last week and to deal with one of the primary issues in the speech where the government identified the Uluru Statement as a priority. It is an important issue, and it is going to take a lot of thought and care for us to be able to deliver on some of the components of those policies that have been sought under that statement. The first point is that there is no question that, over the past 250 years, we have failed to institute good policies in Indigenous affairs. We have not been able to provide the sort of country we want to be. All you need to do is look at the often-recited statistics in the Closing the gap reports, which are regularly provided, and the updates given by the Productivity Commission.

Reflecting upon what Senator Smith had to say, there is no question that the Labor Party have done some good things over their history in Indigenous affairs, and so has the Liberal Party. It will take a degree of bipartisanship and tripartisanship if we are going to have any success in this area. We are living in a country that has not had a successful referendum since 1977, which was quite a long time before I was born, and there have been a series of defeated referenda in my lifetime. In order to achieve broad based support for a change in the Constitution, it will be very important to take people along on the journey and to address issues, some of which have been raised in this chamber and in this building in the past couple of weeks.

I think it is a reasonable proposition that we would seek to achieve what John Howard set out in 2007, when he said that we should have a form of constitutional recognition, but that we also should seek to do a better job on listening to people in communities about government service delivery and do a better job of ensuring that the laws and policies we make for Indigenous people are working for those communities. It is true that everyone is an individual, and it is also true that, when you travel around parts of regional Australia and talk to community members, as I have in western New South Wales, they are not talking about the Constitution. They're not thinking about constitutional amendments, in many cases. The issues that are before them are much more immediate and are often about routine service delivery—getting kids to school and the like. My view is that these changes, if done properly, can address this wretched problem of: How does government provide services? How does government engage with and listen to citizens, particularly in the far-flung parts of the states that we represent? My hope is that that is what can happen in this process.

Now, with a set of words having been put on the table last weekend—and as our shadow minister, Mr Leeser, indicated is a reasonable question and reasonable starting point—the parliament and the community should be given an opportunity to look at the various models or forms of words that could not only be applicable and acceptable to Indigenous people more broadly but also have a chance of being adopted and have a chance of winning at a referendum. I think that is a reasonable position for us to work on. I will be happy to work with other people in this parliament on that process. I would make the point, though, that if we are going to focus on the voice, which I understand is the first priority that most people in this place have indicated we should pursue, that is going to take a lot of the effort. I think it's going to be hard to pursue other significant measures in this space. So I look forward to making some contributions there.

Of course, the main reason we have this parliament is to ensure that we can put in place policies for the benefit of our people. My view has always been that the foundation of a fair or good society is a strong economy. The Labor Party had a few policies they took to the election that they won—not many; they had a few. They had a few policies for the economy—just a few. Let's see how they go with those. But, in the first few weeks of the government's time in office, the initial agenda appears to be very focused on paying off vested interests: the super funds, the unions and the class action lawyers. I just say that, if the job of a government is to work through the list of grievances from its vested interests, that would be a very regrettable start. I think we will ultimately end up in a position where the government is going to run out of things to do, because these laundry lists of rent-seekers are only so long.

I'll step through a few of these misguided agenda items. Everyone knows that the ABCC abolition is purely designed to pay off the CFMMEU, which is the major donor to the Labor Party. Why would anyone want to reduce the rule of law and transparency in that key construction sector? Then we've got Mr Jones over in the House of Representatives seeking to hide political donations that have been made by the super funds into the union movement. What's very curious is that Mr Jones is also seeking to hide payments from the super funds to the union movement. He is seeking to do that by ripping up regulations that were made only a few months ago which require super funds to disclose to members in their annual member statements the amount and the detail of the payments that are made to political parties and to unions. They're required to be disclosed in detail. Mr Jones wants to rip that up. He's wanting to do that before the disclosures have even been made for the financial year just gone, I assume because he doesn't want to be embarrassed by what disclosures are going to be made.

He currently has a consultation draft of his regulation with the Treasury department. I feel sorry for the Treasury officials. I feel sorry for them having to implement this absolute garbage, which is basically going to rip up the transparency and integrity provisions that have been put in place. After the Labor Party have lectured everyone else in this place about transparency and integrity, one of their first items is, of course, to reduce integrity and transparency. Anyway, Mr Jones is out there consulting on his regulations to hide these donations and these payments. 'The great super cover-up' is what I call it. If he decides to go ahead with this and he wants to make this regulation, of course this chamber could disallow that regulation within 15 days of it having been made.

Let's see. We will see whether the people who talk endlessly about integrity and transparency are going to eat their words or whether they are going to ensure that people who are forced to save into these vehicles are allowed to see where their money is going. That is the question: can people who are members of super funds see where their money is going? Is it going to the Labor Party? Is it going off to the unions? We know that in the last year 13 million bucks went from the super funds into the unions. That's going to balloon to $30 million by the end of this decade, so it's a lot of money. Anyone who's been involved in political campaigns in Australia can tell you that 13 million bucks a year is a lot of money. We will see if Mr Jones wants to pursue this regulation. I suspect that he may not want to, but if he does we will test the mettle of the Senate and see whether people are really committed to transparency and integrity.

The other thing that Mr Jones is pursuing over there in the House is a proposal to weaken the best financial interests duty that was put in place for the super funds, which is designed to stop the super funds giving the money out for non-commercial, non-member-focused activities. It is designed to stop these sorts of payments to unions and to political parties. It is designed to ensure that the funds can't get engaged in political advertising. It's designed to stop the funds sending money off to their boondoggle, the New Daily, which is an organisation that they've funded heavily and is basically just a propaganda outfit. The whole point of the best financial interests duty was to ensure that superannuation is there for the members.

Mr Jones has asked the Treasury—again, I feel sorry for the Treasury officials, who are very good officials. The Treasury officials in the Markets Group are some of the best public servants in the Commonwealth, and they're sitting there having to review the best financial interests duty. The only reason you would want to review the best financial interests duty is that you want to permit new payments that are banned today. That's the only reason you would do it. So we will see. Mr Jones, at some stage, will have to come clean on what other payments he wants to see. Does he want to open the floodgates to more payments for unions? Does he want to set up a new media empire funded by the unions? Maybe he wants to send more money through to the New South Wales branch of the Labor Party. We will find out. But until we are clearer about what payments he wants to admit, that agenda can only be seen as working through a laundry list of items for the super fund and union movement.

Of course, the Labor Party have put forward very few policies for small business, and I think that in this term of parliament we should be looking to make it easier for people to run a small business, make it easier to hire, make it easier to comply with government regulations and make it easier to pay tax. We want to make sure that small businesses in this country are very easy to get going. Equally, my own party should have a good hard look at what policies we're prepared to put on the table as a party of government and, directionally, my party should also take time to consider the verdict that was given at the last election. I believe we should be very focused on our core equities of putting forward policies that are predominantly around driving economic growth, looking after enterprise and ensuring that we are focused on fairness—looking after people.

I would say that in the last period there have been too many cases where we have been dragged into culture wars and things that didn't really matter to people, or people couldn't understand why we were pursuing them, and we have been perceived at times as not being focused on fairness. We need to be a party of government focused on fairness and enterprise and we need to consider carefully the feedback from the electorate that we received in May. There is always room for improvement. People shouldn't be defensive about these things. It is my strong view that we have to have much better policies on emissions reduction. We have to take seriously the issues that were raised by Australian women, and we have to be committed to working with the government and other parties to put in place a serious integrity commission in Canberra.

I think this week has been an important week on that journey and I very much welcome the opposition leader's commitment that the Liberal Party and the coalition will develop a stronger policy on emissions reduction. We have had the 26 to 28 per cent reduction by 2030 for too long, and it has not been good enough. I am very keen that we go to the next election—well before the next election—with a vastly stronger policy on emissions reduction. It's important that the parties of government are presenting to the community but also to investors, who we want to fund this transition—we don't want taxpayers to be funding the transition; we want the market to fund it—that the parties of government are committed to emissions reduction, are committed to doing it in a competitive way, are going to keep pace with our competitors and are going to do our fair share of the heavy lifting. Thank you for the opportunity to speak; goodbye.