Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise today to speak about the Administrative Review Tribunal Bill 2024 and related bills and ask the question of why we're debating them this afternoon. It seems quite extraordinary that, out of nowhere, we seem to have a deal that's brought on this group of bills. And, yet, I cannot for the life of me see any urgency for doing it today. I can't see how these bills can possibly be urgent enough to be the subject of a change to the order of hours for the day. But here we are. We have a government that, every time they can't manage the chamber and put their legislative workload through at the appropriate time, go and talk to their mates the Greens down the other end of the chamber and do some deal on something. So we come in here and have the conventions of this chamber completely thrown out the window because it suits them—because all of a sudden Mr Dreyfus in the other place decides he wants his bill pushed through this place today. So the conventions of good and consistent government, conventions of government that have stood the test of time, all get thrown out the window simply because they just decided they can, and they have some friends in this chamber who are happy to vote with them to let that happen. One of the things that I learnt a very long time ago is it's much better to be consistent than convenient—because convenience will always catch up with you one day when you're a hypocrite.

But the most egregious part of this bill is that we are in a cost-of-living crisis. Even the other side today admitted this when the Minister for Finance was questioned during question time. We saw the Treasurer being questioned and we have seen the Prime Minister being questioned. There is absolutely no doubt in anyone's mind in this place that there is a cost of living crisis facing Australians today. Every Australian knows that they're facing a cost-of-living crisis, because it's hurting them in their pockets.

What we've got before us here is $1 billion that is about to be spent on a piece of legislation that has no real purpose. Nothing of any substance will change with this change of legislation. In fact, we'll get an 'R' instead of an 'A'. So we'll end up with the 'ART' instead of the 'AAT'. Other than that, there is no substantive change apart from patting the ego of an Attorney-General who wants to put his name on something with a billion dollar tag attached to it. Every Australian should be asking the question of what a billion dollars has bought them in this legislation. As I said, right now we've got the AAT, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. At the end of this passage of legislation, assuming these bills go through, we'll have the Administrative Review Tribunal. That doesn't seem to be worth $1 billion to me.

Before these bills, under the existing administration, Australians could apply for a merit review of a government decision that affected them. After the passage of these bills—guess what?—Australians can apply for a merits based review of a decision that affects them. The difference will be, though, that they'll pay more to get that decision. Before this decision that's been put to us today is made, roughly half the tribunal members were appointed by the Labor government—existing members appointed since the last election. After these bills pass, assuming they do, the body will be entirely appointed by the Labor Party. So you would have to say that this has achieved only two things. It's a very, very expensive rebranding exercise where they've changed the word 'appeals' to 'review'. And we've ended up with a situation where, absolutely blatantly, the Labor Party have stacked out an organisation entirely with the people they wanted to put there. That is not the way you run executive government. That is not the way you run the country. These are conventions that have stood the test of time. You don't be political about these sorts of organisations. You put people on them that have the skills and experience to serve on them.

What we've basically got today is a billion-dollar expenditure on absolutely nothing, right in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. I think Australians should be asking if their government speaks out of both sides of their mouth. On one side, they go out there and try to spruik the rhetoric of last night's budget, talking about how they're dealing with cost-of-living pressures, but at the same time they're quite happy to completely burn a billion dollars for a vanity project for the Attorney-General. It is absolutely disgusting.

Let's also be very, very clear: the opposition also accepts that, in the 600-plus pages of legislation we have before us, there are probably some very good things. Nobody ever should say that legislation can't be improved, particularly legislation that's been in place for a considerable amount of time. We should always be open to reforms that make things better. Where there is a legitimate need to reform, we're quite happy to make sure that those improvements are made. We're talking about 400 different pieces of legislation or in excess of that.

The AAT has been around for 50 years. It is a process. I think it is completely reasonable that we have a look at it. The AAT also deals with such an extraordinary range of different pieces of legislation, be it in relation to migration, the national disability scheme or social services. There are so many different things the AAT has to deal with. It does seem very sensible that, at certain points in time, we look at how we can improve this legislation.

That part of this legislation, obviously, the opposition would be entirely keen to support. But there are so many complexities in a scheme of this size. We would question the need to shove this through this place today. Obviously, tomorrow it will have its neck chopped off under the guillotine that has become such a commonly used tool by those on the other side. I think they should call it the Albanese guillotine government, because that's what they seem to do with just about every piece of legislation. They don't seem to be interested or can't manage the time of this chamber.

There's a key question for every Australian out there today when you're struggling to pay your rent, mortgage or power bill, or when you have to brace yourself to go into the supermarket to buy your weekly grocery shop because you simply know it's going to hurt so much more than it has ever hurt before, because prices just continue to go up. At the same time, the Australian government thinks it's okay to spend a billion dollars on next to nothing.

Make no mistake—despite the small amount of money that will come through the process of people paying for reviews and through some appropriations to the AAT, most of the money that goes towards these billion dollars is new money. It's money that has to be found. It's money that goes on the bottom line. It's money that isn't paying off Australia's debt. It is money that is not actually benefiting Australians at all. If you gave Australians the choice about what they want to spend a billion dollars on, I can pretty much guarantee you that nobody would say they want to spend a billion dollars on changing the AAT to the ART.

The most egregious thing about the absolute blatancy of what's going on here is the Labor Party seeking to put all its own mates on the AAT. Make no mistake. Of the people on the AAT—even those that were appointed by the coalition government in its previous term—some are really eminent people with extraordinary qualifications. They are people who I think anybody would be happy to have presiding over the review of a decision that was made by a government department in relation to an issue that was before them. The list of people who are appointed to the AAT is published. Anybody can, at any time, look at the skills and qualifications of those people who sit on the AAT. These are some really eminent people that the Attorney-General wants to purge from the AAT without any thought whatsoever about the value proposition they provide, simply because they happened to be appointed by the coalition. This is a political witch-hunt of an extraordinary nature, and I think the Attorney-General should be called to account as to why he thinks his political influence over what should be an independent body is an appropriate use of his time and appropriate behaviour for the highest law officer in the land. The highest law officer in the land is seeking to politicise an independent review body. It is absolutely outrageous.

If any government previous to this—particularly a coalition government—had tried to act in this way, you can imagine the outcry from the other side. But they're quite happily able to bring this in here, and with their friends down at the other end of the chamber they're going to throw out a whole heap of eminent people simply because they happened to be appointed under the coalition. We're talking about people who have master's degrees. We're talking about people with first-class honours degrees. In fact, I think there are a couple of University Medallists that are currently operating as officers of the AAT. We've got decorated military officers, ex-defence people, people who have headed up government departments, public servants of the highest standing—I think we've even got the former Sex Discrimination Commissioner and a chair of the Accounting Standards Board. We're not talking about people who have no qualifications; we're talking about people who have exactly the qualifications that you need to undertake reviews of decisions.

The fact is we are standing here today with a rushed process that doesn't allow us adequate time to scrutinise the really important measures about review and reform to make sure that the systems that are in place are appropriate and fit for purpose going forward. That has all been thrown out the window. We're not going to have a thorough look at that, because we're going to have to shove this through. We're spending money that the government simply doesn't have. If the Australian public actually knew what was going on here, I think they'd be absolutely horrified about the prioritisation of this particular bill, on the government purses—at the waste of time here in the Senate today, when it should have been dealt with appropriately somewhere else, and at the lack of consultation—which is, I must say, a hallmark of just about every piece of legislation that's comes in this place from the other side. They're not particularly keen, unless they're worrying about stitching up a deal with someone, to have proper scrutiny of this. You have to kick and fight to get anything sent off to a committee and, invariably, they stack them or don't invite the witnesses you want, just to make sure they get the biased outcome they want for the legislation.

We have a government here who are quite happy to completely undermine the principles of the democratic system of this country simply so they can get their outcome. I've got to say, it's a very sad reflection on them, because for many years we have operated this place as a two-chamber parliament that actually respected the conventions, and we got the right outcomes because we went through the processes. The processes were put in place to make sure we have robust government and robust scrutiny. Therefore, we get good legislation, and good legislation means Australians are governed by good laws. This place seems to have forgotten about that. Those opposite and those down the other end of the chamber can't care less—it's all about a little petty win. They're not worried about what consequences their decisions have on the broader Australian public.

Where we are at the moment with these three bills—clearly, we wouldn't be standing here today under a change of orders if we hadn't had a deal done between the government and the Greens—means that we are going to have a whole heap of changes. We're going to force through 692 pages of primary legislation and 760 pages of explanatory materials, and we're going to shove them through here without much thought. There are 67,000 cases that are currently on foot before the AAT. I'd really like to know what provisions have been put in place to make sure they aren't affected. I think this is a very sad day. We have had a process that we all relied on that has not been undertaken in good faith.

The unintended consequences of this will be here for everyone to see in the future. I'd say to those opposite: before you actually decide that you're going to chop this off before it's had appropriate scrutiny, think about the unintended consequences on the people who are involved. Think about the unintended consequences of what would happen if, in the process of making this rushed change, you made a mistake and decisions that came out of the ART, when it's formed, were not right.

It reinforces our point—and I just want to reinforce this before I finish my contribution—that we must never shy away from scrutiny. Scrutiny is our friend, and scrutiny always delivers a better outcome. We all might think we know everything, but we don't. More eyes looking over something always makes for a better decision. I condemn the government for this action.