Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I see a couple of senators waving around the Notice Paper. Guess what, senators? Your leader didn't mention that. He didn't mention that. I haven't seen any indication from Senator Farrell in the motions he's moved, the statements he's made or the lack of anything being circulated as to what it is that this Senate has been asked to vote on.

We had the situation before, in terms of the procedure being applied, where quite understandably Senator Pocock arrived in the chamber needing to have clarity provided and a division recommitted. Do you know the reason these problems are occurring? It's of course the lack of transparency from those opposite—the lack of transparency, the failure of those opposite to want to commit to reasonable, fair processes either in the way they manage this chamber or, indeed, in the way they manage the country overall.

What I suspect, from senators waving around their various Notice Papers and the interjections from across the chamber, is that the motion Senator Farrell wants the Senate to consider is a motion that relates to changing in some way or other the terms of the select committee that this Senate agreed to set up into the government's decision around Qatar Airways. The government wouldn't be in this mess if only they could be transparent about that very decision. So a lack of transparency around the decision has been piled upon with a lack of transparency or confidence in the management of this chamber to create the mess that we see here before us right now.

We've had Minister Catherine King go through at least seven different explanations for why she took this decision. We've had various explanations and accounts. Then we had an attempt by the government during the course of this week, in having to answer questions in this chamber and in the other place, to circle the wagons and all say, 'Well, the decision was made in the national interest, and we won't say anything other than that it was made in national interest.' So it's: 'national interest, national interest, national interest'. When challenged in this place about the national interest grounds upon which the decision was made, we saw complete inability from those opposite to actually outline what those grounds were. The government wouldn't be in this mess if they had been able to define and clearly state what the grounds for the decision were.

This select committee has earned the thoughtful support of those on the crossbench, and I thank those on the crossbench who considered this issue carefully. Let's be honest: they haven't provided many wins for the opposition in the life of this Senate, so I want to acknowledge those on the crossbench who clearly, on this occasion, considered the issue carefully, after much advocacy by my colleague Senator McKenzie and others, and concluded that the lack of transparency from the government on this decision warranted proper scrutiny. That is why a select committee—and it's an extraordinary proposition for a select committee to happen—was set up to examine this.

Senator McKenzie, quite rightly, made sure that, because this was a very specific decision of government, there were very specific terms of reference for the select committee. It's a short, sharp, focused inquiry on this decision of government so that we can try to get to the bottom of who influenced the government to make this decision. What influence peddlers or others were involved? What role did the Prime Minister or other ministers play in relation to the making of this decision? What role did the Prime Minister's office or other ministerial offices play in relation to the making of this decision? There are a number of issues there. Critically, what analysis was undertaken in relation to the making of this decision? What was the input from other departments? The acting Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Farrell, is Minister for Trade and Tourism. I trust that he was consulted in the making of this decision, because surely it would be a serious abrogation of proper process and duty for the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government not to have consulted the Minister for Trade and Tourism about a decision with such consequential impact for the tourism industry and for trade in our country.

We've seen numerous examples, given by senators during the course of this week, of the consequences of this decision. Senator Brockman asked a very important question yesterday in relation to how this decision, for example, is linked to the government's policy to ban the live sheep export trade, quite rightly highlighting that the government has said, 'In banning the live sheep export trade we want to instead encourage Australia's sheep farmers to send more chilled meat, particularly to the market of the Middle East.' Well, for chilled meat to get to the Middle East, it needs planes, it needs flights, and it needs them to be going from Perth to Middle Eastern capitals. So was Minister King's decision in the national interest? If you're a sheep grazier in Western Australia who's looking to build alternative markets for your product, no, Minister King's decision was demonstrably not in the national interest for you as a sheep grazier.

Was Minister King's decision in the national interest for Senator Farrell's stakeholders in the tourism industry? Have a listen to the words of Graham Turner, the chief executive of Flight Centre. He called this one of the most ridiculous decisions he's ever seen made by a government. It's very clear from tourism and travel industry operators—from the big businesses such as Mr Turner's right down to the small businesses who rely upon seeing more tourists come through the doors of Australia—that, for each and every one of them, Minister King's decision was not in the national interest.

Is it in the national interest in relation to the competitiveness of our aviation sector? What do we mean when we talk about competitiveness? We mean the prices Australians pay and the availability of good, cheap reliable airfares and opportunities around the country. On that test maybe the jury's out, because it depends who you believe. It depends whether you believe the Prime Minister, who says, 'in Australia we have the most open aviation market in the world, bar none.' That's what the Prime Minister has said this year. He's also described it as the most competitive market in the world. That's the Prime Minister talking about Australia's aviation market. Yet, just today the government released its aviation green paper, which says, 'Australia's domestic aviation sector is highly concentrated, with few market participants.'

Let's compare and contrast the Prime Minister's statement, that ours is the most open aviation market in the world, with the aviation green paper's statement, that it is the most highly concentrated with the fewest participants. Credit to Minister Gallagher—somehow, she came in here and, when questioned about the obvious inconsistencies in the Prime Minister's statement, she said with a straight face that they're not inconsistent statements. Credit to Senator Gallagher. She's up for an Oscar! The Oscar goes to Senator Gallagher for her performance in terms of being able to deny that with a straight face.

I do hear the interjections from Senator McAllister, who seems to be of the view that there is no connectivity between international aviation and domestic aviation—