Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I, too, rise to speak on this motion. I thank Senator Rennick for putting it forward. One thing we know about Queenslanders and Western Australians in this place is we tend to be the committed federalists in the building. Western Australians were strong federalists at a time when we probably needed a bit of financial assistance from the Commonwealth government, and we remain committed federalists at a time when we are net givers to the federal economic situation—whether that's through the GST or through the extraordinary tax revenue and royalty revenue that grows from our great mining industry.

The issue Senator Rennick highlights here is one that we should never take for granted—that is, the health of our democracy, the health of our structures and systems, the health of our Federation. I think many of us who have been in and around politics for a number of decades know these discussions about waste, duplication, inefficiency, the lack of clarity between the roles and responsibilities of the Commonwealth government and the states, the blurring of the lines and the tendency for the Commonwealth to creep into areas that were, quite frankly, clearly not part of its purview when the Constitution was drafted. There has been a slow drift. There have been occasional huge lurches in that process through High Court decisions or through, as Senator Rennick outlined, the handing over of particular powers to Commonwealth governments by agreement from the states. But that doesn't mean that this is a set-and-forget Federation. We cannot think that the discussions that were held over 120 years ago now should be the final word as to the health of our Federation and the structures of our Federation.

Senator Rennick is highlighting the possibility—when all's said and done, this is a referral to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee for an inquiry, and I think that is what this chamber has a responsibility to do. We have seen a tendency in this place in recent times, and particularly in the last year, for Labor—particularly in combination with the Greens—to block what I see as quite legitimate and uncontroversial inquiries, such as an inquiry into the transmission lines through, particularly, agricultural property that are going to be a significant part of the proposed future rollout of renewable energy that Labor and the Greens are championing. That was quite a reasonable inquiry put forward by Senator Cadell—who's in the chamber at the moment—and Senator Colbeck a number of times. How many times did we get up to, Senator Cadell?