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

I thank Senator Lambie for moving this motion. Rightly, Senator Lambie spoke, in moving this motion, to the promises—the very hollow promises—that the incoming Labor government gave about integrity and transparency, which they have, over and over again, walked away from, misleading the Australian people. I won't use another term that would more appropriately fit, but they have completely ignored the commitments they made to the Australian people for honesty and transparency.

I was in this building, in a different capacity, in June 2013, on that very ugly day when 55 bills were guillotined through this place. So I say to you, Senator Lambie: this is not a new phenomenon. This is not some new pattern of behaviour from the Australian Labor Party in government. They have form. Not only was there that one week—effectively, one day—where 55 bills were guillotined through this place without proper debate, but during that term of government, 216 bills faced the guillotine. The Committee of Public Safety would have been proud of the Labor government's record of using the guillotine; Robespierre would have been proud of the Labor government's record on using the guillotine!

Did they learn from the process failures of the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years? Did they look at their own behaviour and say to themselves, 'Oh, maybe this actually isn't the way to run a legislative program. Maybe this isn't the best way of governing Australia'? It got to the point where bills with multiple, multiple—sometimes 10, sometimes close to 100—amendments were being rammed through, with no chance to look at those amendments, no committee stage on those bills and no chance to properly debate. Sometimes, there was not even the chance to have second reading debates, which are an essential component of our work of this place, in doing our duty to the people of Australia. Two hundred and sixteen bills, in one term of government, were guillotined through parliament. The Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years—we thought we'd seen the end of them; we thought that the Labor Party would have learnt their lesson from that time. But, sadly, Senator Lambie, the Labor Party didn't learn their lesson from the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years.

Senator Lambie, something I would also like to point out, as to this motion, is that the Labor Party cannot guillotine alone. The Labor Party, on their numbers, cannot guillotine bills alone; they need the support of their allies in the Greens and they need the support of some of the crossbenchers in order to guillotine. So I say to you, Senator Lambie: I accept that you have been strong in this area, but the fact is that fellow crossbenchers have not been as strong. They have worked with the government. They worked with the government back in the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years to ensure all those bills were guillotined—216 in one term of government. Currently, the crossbench works with the government to see all the many, many bills we have already seen in this term of government guillotined, and I suspect next week there's going to be another raft, if not later this week. We're going to see another huge raft of bills rammed through this place.

Senator Gallagher, are you going to stand up and deny it? Is there going to be a guillotine next week? Oh, well, Senator Gallagher laughs, but I'm willing to predict there will be a guillotine next week. I'm willing to predict that the Committee of Public Safety will be at it again, that we in this place will lose our power to speak to bills, to discuss and debate amendments, and to have a committee stage, where we ask the minister very justified questions about this government's failure of process. (Time expired)