Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That—

(1)

The standing orders and other orders of the Senate be amended as set out in the report with effect from 11 September 2006.

(2)

The temporary order, relating to substitute members of committees, as set out in the report be adopted with effect from 11 September 2006 till the first sitting day in 2007.

The document read as follows—

25  Legislative and general purpose

(1)

At the commencement of each Parliament, legislative and general purpose standing committees shall be appointed, as follows:

Community Affairs

Economics

Employment, Workplace Relations and Education

Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts

Finance and Public Administration

Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade

Legal and Constitutional Affairs

Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport.

(2)

The committees shall inquire into and report upon:

(a)

matters referred to them by the Senate, including estimates of expenditure in accordance with standing order 26, bills or draft bills, annual reports in accordance with paragraph (20); and

(b)

the performance of departments and agencies allocated to them.

(3)

References concerning departments and agencies shall be allocated to the committees in accordance with a resolution of the Senate allocating departments and agencies to the committees.

(4)

The committees shall inquire into and report upon matters referred to their predecessor committees appointed under this standing order and not disposed of by those committees, and in considering those matters may consider the evidence and records of those committees relating to those matters.

(5)

The committees shall consist of 8 senators, 4 nominated by the Leader of the Government in the Senate, 3 nominated by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and one nominated by minority groups and independent senators.

(6)

(a)   The committees to which minority groups and independent senators make nominations shall be determined by agreement between the minority groups and independent senators, and, in the absence of agreement duly notified to the President, any question of the representation on a committee shall be determined by the Senate.

(b)

The allocation of places on the committees amongst minority groups and independent senators shall be as nearly as practicable proportional to the numbers of those minority groups and independent senators in the Senate.

(7)

(a)   Senators may be appointed to the committees as substitutes for members of the committees in respect of particular matters before the committees.

(b)

On the nominations of the Leader of the Government in the Senate, the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and minority groups and independent senators, participating members may be appointed to the committees.

(c)

Participating members may participate in hearings of evidence and deliberations of the committees, and have all the rights of members of committees, but may not vote on any questions before the committees.

(d)

A participating member shall be taken to be a member of a committee for the purpose of forming a quorum of the committee if a majority of members of the committee is not present.

(8)

A committee may appoint sub-committees consisting of 3 or more of its members, and refer to any such sub-committee any of the matters which the committee is empowered to consider.

(9)

(a)   Each committee shall elect as its chair a member nominated by the Leader of the Government in the Senate.

(b)

Each of 6 committees shall elect as its deputy chair a member nominated by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, and each of 2 committees shall elect as its deputy chair a member of a minority group in the Senate.

(c)

The deputy chairs to which members nominated by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate and members of minority groups are elected shall be determined by agreement between the opposition and minority groups, and, in the absence of agreement duly notified to the President, any question of the allocation of deputy chairs shall be determined by the Senate.

(d)

Each committee shall elect one of its members as its deputy chair and the member so elected shall act as the chair of the committee when the member elected as chair is absent from a meeting of the committee or the position of chair is temporarily vacant.

(e)

When votes on a question before a committee are equally divided, the chair, or the deputy chair when acting as chair, shall have a casting vote.

(f)

The chair, or the deputy chair when acting as chair, may appoint another member of a committee to act as chair during the temporary absence of both the chair and deputy chair at a meeting of the committee.

(10)

The chairs and deputy chairs of the committees, together with the chairs and deputy chairs of any select committees appointed by the Senate, shall constitute the Chairs’ Committee, which may meet with the Deputy President in the chair, and may consider and report to the Senate on any matter relating to the operations of the committees.

(11)

Except as otherwise provided by the standing orders, the reference of a matter to a committee shall be on motion after notice, and such notice of motion may be given:

(a)

in the usual manner when notices are given; or

(b)

at any other time by a senator:

(i)

stating its terms to the Senate, when no other business is before the chair, or

(ii)

delivering a copy to the Clerk, who shall report it to the Senate at the first opportunity;

and shall be placed on the Notice Paper for the next sitting day as business of the Senate and, as such, shall take precedence of government and general business set down for that day.

(12)

Matters referred to the committees should relate to subjects which can be dealt with expeditiously.

(13)

A committee shall take care not to inquire into any matters which are being examined by a select committee of the Senate appointed to inquire into such matters and any question arising in this connection may be referred to the Senate for determination.

(14)

A committee and any sub-committee shall have power to send for persons and documents, to move from place to place, and to meet and transact business in public or private session and notwithstanding any prorogation of the Parliament or dissolution of the House of Representatives.

(15)

All documents received by a committee during an inquiry shall remain in the custody of the Senate after the completion of that inquiry.

(16)

A committee shall be empowered to print from day to day any of its documents and evidence. A daily Hansard shall be published of public proceedings of a committee.

(17)

A committee shall be provided with all necessary staff, facilities and resources and shall be empowered to appoint persons with specialist knowledge for the purposes of the committee, with the approval of the President.

(18)

A committee may report from time to time its proceedings and evidence taken and any recommendations, and shall make regular reports on the progress of its proceedings.

(19)

A committee may authorise the broadcasting of its public hearings, under such rules as the Senate provides.

(20)

Annual reports of departments and agencies shall stand referred to the committees in accordance with an allocation of departments and agencies in a resolution of the Senate. Each committee shall:

(a)

Examine each annual report referred to it and report to the Senate whether the report is apparently satisfactory.

(b)

Consider in more detail, and report to the Senate on, each annual report which is not apparently satisfactory, and on the other annual reports which it selects for more detailed consideration.

(c)

Investigate and report to the Senate on any lateness in the presentation of annual reports.

(d)

In considering an annual report, take into account any relevant remarks about the report made in debate in the Senate.

(e)

If the committee so determines, consider annual reports of departments and budget-related agencies in conjunction with examination of estimates.

(f)

Report on annual reports tabled by 31 October each year by the tenth sitting day of the following year, and on annual reports tabled by 30 April each year by the tenth sitting day after 30 June of that year.

(g)

Draw to the attention of the Senate any significant matters relating to the operations and performance of the bodies furnishing the annual reports.

(h)

Report to the Senate each year whether there are any bodies which do not present annual reports to the Senate and which should present such reports.

26  Estimates

(1)

Annual and additional estimates, contained in the documents presenting the particulars of proposed expenditure and additional expenditure, shall be referred to the legislative and general purpose standing committees for examination and report.

(2)

The committees shall hear evidence on the estimates in public session.

(3)

Not more than 4 committees shall hear evidence on the estimates simultaneously.

(4)

When a committee hears evidence on the estimates, the chair shall, without motion, call on items of expenditure in the order decided upon and declare the proposed expenditure open for examination.

(5)

The committees may ask for explanations from ministers in the Senate, or officers, relating to the items of proposed expenditure.

(6)

The report of a committee on the estimates may propose the further consideration of any items.

(7)

A Hansard report of the committees’ hearings of evidence on the estimates shall be circulated, in a manner similar to the daily Senate Hansards, as soon as practicable after each day’s proceedings.

(8)

Participating membership of committees shall not have effect in respect of proceedings on estimates, other than the formation of a quorum, but any senator may attend a meeting of a committee in relation to estimates, question witnesses and participate in the deliberations of the committee at such a meeting and add a reservation to a report relating to estimates.

(9)

After a committee has considered proposed expenditure referred to it by the Senate and agreed to its report to the Senate, the committee shall fix:

(a)

a day for the submission to the committee of any written answers or additional information relating to the proposed expenditure; and

(b)

in respect of the annual estimates only, a day for the commencement of supplementary meetings of the committee to consider matters relating to the proposed expenditure.

The day fixed under subparagraph (9)(b) shall be not less than 10 days after the day fixed under subparagraph (9)(a).

(10)

A senator may lodge with a committee, not less than 3 working days before the day fixed under subparagraph (9)(b), notice of matters, relating to the written answers or additional information, or otherwise relating to the proposed expenditure referred to the committee, which the senator wishes to raise at the supplementary meetings of the committee. A notice shall be forwarded by the committee to the minister in the Senate responsible for the matters to which the notice relates.

(11)

A committee may determine at any time the number and duration of any supplementary meetings.

(12)

At a supplementary meeting, questions may be put to ministers or officers relating to matters of which notice has been given, and the proceedings of the committee shall be confined to those matters, but the committee shall otherwise conduct the proceedings in accordance with this standing order.

(13)

A committee may report to the Senate any recommendation for further action by the Senate arising from the committee’s supplementary meetings.

(14)

Written questions relating to the estimates may be supplied to the secretaries of the committees, who shall distribute them to the relevant departments and to members of the committees. Answers shall be supplied to, and circulated by, the secretaries.

74  Questions on notice

(1)

Notice of a question shall be given by a senator signing and delivering it to the Clerk, fairly written, printed, or typed. Notice may be given by one senator on behalf of another.

(2)

The Clerk shall place notices of questions on the Notice Paper in the order in which they are received.

(3)

The reply to a question on notice shall be given by delivering it to the Clerk, a copy shall be supplied to the senator who asked the question, the publication of the reply is then authorised, and the question and reply shall be printed in Hansard.

(4)

A senator who has received a copy of a reply pursuant to this standing order may, by leave, immediately after questions without notice, ask the question and have the reply read in the Senate.

(5)

If a minister does not answer a question on notice asked by a senator within 30 days of the asking of that question, or if a question taken on notice during a hearing of a legislative and general purpose standing committee considering estimates remains unanswered 30 days after the day set for answering the question, and a minister does not, within that period, provide to the senator who asked the question an explanation satisfactory to that senator of why an answer has not yet been provided:

(a)

at the conclusion of question time on any day after that period, the senator may ask the relevant minister for such an explanation; and

(b)

the senator may, at the conclusion of the explanation, move without notice—That the Senate take note of the explanation; or

(c)

in the event that the minister does not provide an explanation, the senator may, without notice, move a motion with regard to the minister’s failure to provide either an answer or an explanation.

115   Committal

(1)

After the second reading, a bill shall be considered in a committee of the whole immediately, unless:

(a)

the bill is referred to a standing or select committee; or

(b)

no senator has:

(i)

circulated in the Senate a proposed amendment or request for amendment of the bill, or

(ii)

required in debate or by notification to the chair that the bill be considered in committee of the whole.

(2)

After a bill has been read a second time a motion may be moved:

(a)

without notice for referring the bill to a committee;

(b)

on notice for an instruction to the committee of the whole.

(3)

The further consideration of a bill referred to a standing or select committee shall be an order of the day for:

(a)

where a day is fixed for the report of the committee, that day; or

(b)

where no day is fixed for the report of the committee, the sitting day next occurring after the day on which the committee reports on the bill.

(4) (a)

Where proposed expenditure has been considered and reported on by a legislative and general purpose standing committee, an appropriation bill authorising that proposed expenditure shall not be considered in committee of the whole, unless, prior to the further consideration of the bill subsequent to the second reading, a senator has circulated in the Senate a proposed amendment or request for amendment of the bill.

(b)

Where an appropriation bill is considered in committee of the whole in accordance with this paragraph:

(i)

the only questions put by the chair shall be:

(a)

that any amendment or request for amendment moved to the bill be agreed to, and

(b)

that the bill be reported with any amendment or request for amendment agreed to by the committee; and

(ii)

debate shall be confined to the purpose of any amendment or request for amendment moved to the bill.

(c)

At any stage of the consideration of an appropriation bill, other than in committee of the whole, an amendment, other than an amendment or a request for an amendment to the bill, arising from a recommendation of a legislative and general purpose standing committee, may be moved to the question before the chair.

(5)

When the order of the day relating to a bill which is the subject of a committee report pursuant to standing order 24A is called on, the following procedures shall apply:

(a)

A motion may be moved without notice that the report of the committee be adopted (if the committee has recommended amendments to the bill, this motion shall have the effect of amending the bill accordingly, but may not be moved if other proposed amendments to the bill have been circulated in the Senate by a senator).

(b)

If a motion under subparagraph (a) is moved, following the disposal of that motion a motion may be moved by a minister, or, in respect of a bill introduced into either House of the Parliament other than by a minister, by the senator in charge of the bill, that consideration of the bill be an order of the day for a future day, or that the bill not be further proceeded with.

(c)

If no motion under subparagraph (a) or (b) is agreed to, a motion may be moved without notice that the bill again be referred to the committee for reconsideration, provided that such motion:

(i)

indicates the matters which the committee is to reconsider, and

(ii)

fixes the day for the further report of the committee,

and if such motion is agreed to the bill shall stand referred to the committee, and the further consideration of the bill shall be an order of the day for the day fixed for the further report of the committee.

(d)

If no motion under subparagraph (b) or (c) is agreed to, consideration of the bill shall be resumed at the stage at which it was referred to the committee, provided that, if the consideration of the bill in committee of the whole has been concluded and the committee has recommended amendments to the bill or requests for amendments, the bill shall again be considered in committee of the whole.

(6)

On a motion on notice and a motion under this standing order to refer a bill to a committee, and on an amendment for that purpose to a question in respect of any stage in the passage of a bill after its second reading, a senator shall not speak for more than 5 minutes, and at the expiration of 30 minutes, if the debate be not sooner concluded, the President shall put the question on the motion and any amendments before the chair, but if a senator wishes to move a further amendment at that time, that amendment may be moved and shall be determined without debate.

Procedural Orders of Continuing Effect—

Committees

6        Reference of Tax Expenditures Statement to committees considering estimates

The annual Tax Expenditures Statement stands referred to legislative and general purpose standing committees for consideration by the committees during their examination of the estimates of government expenditure under standing order 26.

Parliamentary secretaries

19      Powers

(1)

Any senator appointed a parliamentary secretary under the Ministers of State Act 1952 may exercise the powers and perform the functions conferred upon ministers by the procedures of the Senate, but may not be asked or answer questions which may be put to ministers under standing order 72(1) or represent a Senate minister in relation to that minister’s responsibilities before a legislative and general purpose standing committee considering estimates.

(2)

This order is of continuing effect.

Broadcasting of Senate and Committee Proceedings—

3        Broadcasting of proceedings of committees when considering estimates

The public proceedings of legislative and general purpose standing committees when considering estimates may be relayed within Parliament House and broadcast by radio and television stations in accordance with the conditions contained in paragraphs (4) and (5) of the order of the Senate relating to the broadcasting of committee proceedings, and in accordance with any further conditions, not inconsistent with the conditions contained in those paragraphs, determined by a committee in relation to the proceedings of that committee.

Temporary order—Substitute members of committees

The following operate as a temporary order with effect from 11 September 2006 till the first sitting day in 2007:

If a member of a committee appointed under standing order 25 is unable to attend a meeting of the committee, that member may in writing to the chair of the committee appoint a participating member to act as a substitute member of the committee at that meeting. If the member is incapacitated or unavailable, a letter to the chair of a committee appointing a participating member to act as a substitute member of the committee may be signed on behalf of the member by the leader of the party or group on whose nomination the member was appointed to the committee.

There are two aspects to this motion. One deals with the changes to the Senate committee system as we know it and the second relates to a proposed temporary order which is contained in the Procedure Committee report that was tabled last week. The committee recommends at page 3 of the report:

The following operate as a temporary order with effect from 11 September 2006 till the first sitting day in 2007:

If a member of a committee appointed under standing order 25 is unable to attend a meeting of the committee, that member may in writing to the chair of the committee appoint a participating member to act as a substitute member of the committee at that meeting. If the member is incapacitated or unavailable, a letter to the chair of a committee appointing a participating member to act as a substitute member of the committee may be signed on behalf of the member by the leader of the party or group on whose nomination the member was appointed to the committee.

The report notes that the Procedure Committee proposes to keep that matter under review. I will not say much more about that, other than to say that this came about as a result of deliberations by the Procedure Committee, in looking at changes to the Senate committee system. I think it is fair to say that, after reflection, people thought that the current procedures for dealing with a change in participation in Senate committees—which involves using the chamber—have been somewhat unwieldy on occasions. I think this recommendation proposes a more efficient means of dealing with that substitution, should it be necessary.

Of course, that is not the main part of the motion that I have moved. The main part deals with the amendment to standing orders. I think we need to look at the background to this. At the 2004 election, the Howard government achieved a majority in the Senate as a direct result of votes that were cast at that election. This was a first for the government of the day—and a first for some period of time. Along with that majority came consideration of other changes in relation to the Senate and how it operated. One was to deal with question time—and there is a precedent for that; that is, the make-up of questions to reflect the make-up of the chamber.

Similarly, the government also thought that that the committee system needed a review. Based on input from coalition backbench senators, it was believed that there needed to be some efficiency and that the unnecessary complexity in the system should be addressed. With that in mind, we looked to the Senate committees as they had been set up under previous governments. Basically, our proposal is to reform the Senate committee system and return it to the terms under the previous Hawke Labor government. Of course, the Labor opposition and others have indulged in a great deal of rhetoric—and conveniently so when you look at the fact that that rhetoric totally ignores the history of the Senate committee system since its introduction in 1970.

The government believes that the history of the Senate committee system demonstrates that it is an evolving process—that it has changed from time to time. Indeed, there were changes made in 1994 when we had the splitting of the Senate committees into two—the legislation committees and the references committees. That, of course, reflected those committees that would deal with bills and those committees that would deal with other references. What has become apparent—apart from the other issues that I have mentioned—is that the duplication in relation to those Senate committees is unnecessary. Indeed, on some occasions, the references committees have had bills referred to them, when that was not the original design of such committees.

Robert Ray (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The second reading only. You know that.

Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They were. I think those who oppose these proposed reforms by the government ignore a number of issues. They ignore not only the history of the matter but also the fact that we will continue to have estimates hearings. We will continue to have four weeks of estimates hearings every year. That is a fact. That remains as is. There have been those who have suggested that, in some way, the scrutiny of the Senate will be diminished because of this change. Estimates hearings, I would suggest, are perhaps the most crucial part of Senate scrutiny—and they will remain as is. The Senate will also continue to have a full question time. If one looks at the statistics, one can see that, of the just over 1,000 questions put to ministers, 800 were asked by non-government senators. That is hardly a reduction in accountability by the Senate.

I have dealt with estimates hearings and question time, and there is of course the debates in the Senate. Of the 29 longest debates we have had in relation to bills that have been dealt with in the Senate, 14 of them were Howard government bills. That demonstrates the time that has been allowed for the debate of bills in the Senate chamber.

We have also seen continued reference to Senate committees of issues and legislation. When you look at the reference of matters to committees, you see that even with a Senate majority the Howard government has continued to refer legitimate issues to Senate committees—71 bills and 15 other issues have been referred in the past 12 months. In fact, in the first six months of this year we have referred more bills to committees than the Labor government did in each of the years of 1991, 1993 and 1995. That is under a government that has a majority, and under a government which is supposedly neutering the effect of the Senate and the accountability regime of the Senate. It is a government which the opposition and others have termed as arrogant and intent on reducing the Senate’s role.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

True. Out of touch as well—divided, incompetent.

Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have just gone through in order a whole range of areas in which Senate scrutiny has been not only maintained but increased. I heard Senator Sherry saying that the government is not in touch. I think that the best way you can ever gauge whether any party is in touch with the people of Australia is when they are brought to account at election time, and I simply refer to recent elections.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The last four.

Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The last four, Senator Ferguson reminds me. That is the measure of how much you are in touch, Senator Sherry. It is not a question of the interjections in the Senate chamber. It is a question of policy and it is a question of whether the Australian community, in a democratic fashion, places its trust in a certain party to govern the country for the next three years.

Quite rightly so, every three years we go to the people of Australia and the people of Australia determine who is in touch. We have said, and the Prime Minister has said, that we do not take one thing for granted. We do not take anything for granted in dealing with issues which affect the people of Australia, and we continue to work on them on a daily basis. This is part of that. It is part of ensuring that the Senate will work in an efficient manner, that it reflects a fair make-up of the chamber and that there continues to be accountability, as I have outlined, in relation to estimates hearings, question time, the referral of matters and bills to committees and also in relation to the time allowed for debate.

We have a record in the last 12 months of a majority by this government which demonstrates that the accountability of the Senate has been maintained and that we will continue to maintain the Senate in its proper role. But, as an elected government, we will not have a situation in which the will of the people of Australia is thwarted or obstructed by unreasonable and inappropriate actions. We have said that on occasion when we have come to crucial pieces of legislation which we have put forward in this chamber. We are a government which has been duly elected, and the will of the people has been reflected. Albeit that some people in this chamber might disagree with it and regret it very much, the fact is that this government has a majority in the Senate as a result of an election by the people of Australia. It is only fair that those policies that we have been elected on are then allowed to be progressed.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sherry interjecting—

Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The interjections by Senator Sherry demonstrate clearly just how out of touch he is. I remind him of the policies that the government has gone to four elections on. I will not enter into an IR debate here. We have other times to do that. But one thing I can say is that the IR policy of the government has been very clearly a centrepiece of our place on the stage of Australian politics. Getting back to the motion, it has two aspects to it. One is to reform the committee process in the Senate and the other is to deal with a temporary order for the substitution of members of committees. Both are a step in the right direction and I commend them to the Senate.

Robert Ray (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Some months ago Senator Minchin, by way of correspondence, announced the execution of the Senate committee system as we know it. What we are doing today is reading out the will. And it has to be understood that our cooperation on the Senate Standing Committee on Procedure is based on trying to maximise the best position for this chamber within the constraints that the government has placed on it.

We have heard from the Manager of Government Business in the Senate today. He has adopted a very sound political technique: if the matter has a bit of heat in it, take all the oxygen out of the debate—Mogadon it. And that is precisely what he has done in his contribution today. I mean, talk about intellectual sloth! There is hardly any passion or any argument that he can put forward, other than to read out a few platitudes that he in his heart of hearts knows are wrong. I must say, though, what a big improvement he is on the previous manager. There are no temper tantrums from this minister, no petulance, no puerile accusations.

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Did you say ‘puerile’?

Robert Ray (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Puerile. He has read out the government case. He has done his job. I will come back to the rationale behind the government later on. But just remember the system we had in 1995: seven select committees, they set up, as well as the other 16 committees that were running and all the others in the parliament. They set up seven select committees to investigate everything.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sherry interjecting—

Robert Ray (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, Senator Sherry, we can all remember a whole variety of them over the years. Today Senator Ellison said, ‘We’ve got a Senate majority.’ I have never tried to deny that. I have always acknowledged that. He said, ‘It is the will of the people.’ What is he going to say when the will of the people shifts the other way and they do not have the Senate majority? You did not seek a mandate for this matter. It was never in the election campaign. Are we entitled to walk in and strip you of all chairmanships simply because you no longer have a majority? It is not as simple as who has a majority and who has not. There is an underlying compact in this place that you behave with a degree of decency et cetera. I am not saying you have totally exceeded that, but you should understand it. If you misuse and abuse your majority, retribution will come. And it will come, naturally.

I know that you are somewhat insulated by the fact that the Greens and Democrats in here are far more reasonable than I am. They will look at the merits of the case. They will not look at it out of spite, as I am inclined to. I am inclined to say: ‘If you do this to us then you have to be taught a lesson. You’re going to be punished in future.’ It is like the old Maoist saying, ‘Punish one, educate 100.’ That may have to happen to you. We understand that. I am not saying that you have totally exceeded it now, but be warned. If the power goes to your head then enjoy it, because what comes back you will not enjoy. Every time you do one of these exercises you should calculate whether it is worth it. In this case you have calculated that it is worth it. But if you continue to do it and erode the position, you will cop it back, unfortunately.

Senator Ellison talked about proportionality in question time. Rubbish, Senator Ellison! In 1994 I walked into this chamber and made an offer to the opposition that was disproportionate. You got the first question and every alternative question—you were in the majority here and you got 50 per cent. You were treated fairly—not on the basis of proportionality but on the basis of the purpose of question time, the purpose of question time being to scrutinise government. It is only ever scrutinised 50 per cent of the time. Under a Labor administration or a Liberal administration, questions from government members, as you know, are a total joke.

Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Ellison interjecting—

Robert Ray (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I beg your pardon?

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator Ray, please continue.

Robert Ray (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not just about proportionality. It is about scrutiny and roles. If you do not understand that then you do not understand much about the traditions of a parliamentary system. We have this parliamentary system not just for our benefit but also for yours. With scrutiny, examination and an adversarial form of politics, you perform better. You can see that in countries overseas which have what they call a cooperative system of politics. That is where corruption flourishes. That is where they are all mates together and they are all on the take together. We do not have that tradition and history here. We have a tradition where actions of the executive are highly scrutinised and where public servants do not take the risk of trying to be wide boys because they know they will probably get caught. All of this has evolved in the Senate. It is as though they think that we set up the committee system that they inherited. They say that in the Hawke days all chairmen were from government. That is true. We inherited that from Fraser. We did not set it up that way.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You inherited it from whom?

Robert Ray (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We inherited it from Fraser.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who did he inherit it from?

Robert Ray (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He inherited it from Whitlam. He inherited it from Gorton or McMahon or whichever other incompetent you had. I will come back to this, though.

Let me go to the details of the proposal, because they are quite important. The original government concept was maybe to go to 10 committees. Some people may wonder why the committee unanimously recommended against that. In part it may be that, in the discussions, the government thought: ‘We have to be cooperative here. We have to listen to the arguments.’ But it is very difficult to accommodate 10 committees, especially at estimates. The number of hearing rooms we have in this building and the amount of Hansard resources probably mean that we could not have five committees meeting at the one time. That is almost certain. Subsequent advice that the Procedure Committee sought and got basically reinforces that view. So the proposal for 10 committees really was not one that was attractive.

We then had the argument about how many people should serve on committees. We did point out that, if you had 10 committees and four government members, 40 backbench senators from the coalition needed to serve on those committees. That in turn would create a degree of absenteeism, inevitably. I do not criticise that. If you are on two committees, it is not possible to devote full attention to them. That very absenteeism would start to create difficulties and tensions amongst the committee members.

It is much better, I think, to go with eight committees. I would have preferred eight by three for government and eight by two for opposition. However, if you take it out of the estimates context and look at the references context, people were worried about how many people, if you only had six to choose from, could attend meetings interstate. We have all been through the embarrassment of having interstate hearings with only a couple of committee members there. It is embarrassing to this chamber and it is embarrassing to everyone. Maybe the suggestion that it be eight by four in the end was the best compromise we could have made. That is the recommendation before you today.

There are a number of transitional provisions. Senator Ellison has mentioned some. We think it is quite apt that you introduced this on September 11, Senator Ellison. You might as well destroy something again on that particular day so that we will all remember it. The transitional provisions go to transferring current hearings, which is quite a fair thing to do, I think. We do not have to go through reinstituting every inquiry and every piece of business before a committee. That transitional one is quite sensible.

The final thing that we have mentioned, which is separate from the restructuring of the committees, is the change to membership of committees when emergency circumstances require it. At the moment that requires the imprimatur of the chamber. Quite often, events that prevent people from attending committees occur outside of the chamber timetable and it is not possible to put substitutes in. We have not gone absolutely all the way with this. We have said that, if a senator wants to be substituted on a committee for a particular day of a particular hearing, they have to write to the chairman of that committee and nominate a participating member. That has the same effect as putting it through this chamber except that it is more efficient and it allows for emergency situations. It is only a temporary order so that we can see how it works. But I very much suspect that in a year’s time it will be made a permanent order—as we often do.

Wasn’t it good to see this emerge from the Procedure Committee unanimously after a sensible discussion! That is why I made the point in this debate some time ago that it is good to see all changes to standing orders go to the Procedure Committee. I commend the government for agreeing to it. I believe it sets an example that we should always follow. In the end, if we cannot get agreement out of the Procedure Committee, you can roll right over the top of us. We know that. We know that it will be a two-vote margin at least. But to have had that discussion, I think—

Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not always!

Robert Ray (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, not always!

Chris Ellison (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On a good day!

Robert Ray (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, on a good day. You would wait for a good day! But it is good to have the discussion, not just because we want the intellectual exercise; we all feel like we can participate in the processes. It is an empowering thing and I recommend that you continue it. We are going to keep a very close eye on how the estimates committees operate next November and February to see if this is the last territorial demand of the government or if they are going to try to fundamentally change it. I hope not.

I am sceptical about some of the activities of Senate committees over the years—I admit that—but the longer I am here the more I change my mind on estimates committees. As a minister I found that it was a good process, and in opposition I find that it is a good process. It is the one thing that demarcates this chamber from those in the rest of the world, basically. No chamber has a scrutiny mechanism as good as that of the estimates committees. I have seen the state ones—really terrific, they are! You rotate questions. So, Senator Ferguson, you might ask a question and you have to wait for seven more questions before you can follow it up. It is a joke. At least we can say that we have developed a system. No particular party can take credit for it—all parties can. It is a system that we will monitor to make sure that it remains valuable.

I have to return to the question: why the changes? We heard the little bleat, ‘We want to go back to the way it was under Paul Keating.’ Really? Why? Why did you put in all the effort in 1994 to change it? The only answer we can get is: ‘We’ve got the numbers now.’ So all the posturing, all the philosophising and all the arguments about scrutiny, proportionality, fairness and all that were just a screen at the time to grab chairmanships, apparently. You are actually debasing your previous history by putting up those sorts of arguments. We have not been given a good reason as to why the change is necessary. We have heard about duplication and the fact that some matters to do with legislation have been referred to references committees. I am afraid that the problem here is your fundamental misunderstanding. It was the committee stages debate that was supposed to go to legislative committees.

If there are broader issues to consider, like second reading issues, they could always go to reference committees, and that was always understood. You have simply misunderstood that. It would have been nice if the government, which was then in opposition, had actually obeyed the letter and the spirit of the changes in 1994 and made those committee hearings the actual committee stages. But no, within two weeks of implementing that system, they were calling witnesses from all around the country to maximise their political position. That is what happened. So the whole apparatus that was set up in 1994 was perverted within a couple of weeks, and the agreements that we had brokered were basically no longer extant.

We have not heard why the changes are occurring, other than when Senator Ellison—I thought, with a degree of honesty—today said, ‘We’ve now got a majority, so it’s fine to change.’ That is, they have a majority based on preferences from Pauline Hanson and Queensland’s One Nation. That is why the government have a majority in this particular chamber. I hope they are proud that that is the way they achieved their majority in this particular chamber. But, of course, not everyone on that side agrees on how they achieved a majority in this chamber. There is a brawl going on, where Senator Brandis claims that it was all his brilliance and where Senator Joyce, a sort of modern-day Lord Haw-Haw of the Senate, claims that it was all his activities that got them a majority. We cannot arbitrate on this side.

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They can’t both be right.

Robert Ray (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They cannot both the right, but maybe they are both wrong—who knows?

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, that’s possible.

Robert Ray (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is a possibility. I will finish on this particular point. One of the major reasons why these changes are being made today is that this government has never liked scrutiny. They have always objected to it. I have pondered on why they would object more than anyone else. I think it basically comes back to their self-image. This is a government led by a Prime Minister and others who really do believe in themselves—they cannot doubt their self-confidence; they believe in their own integrity and purity—and, the moment that they are actually caught out doing something that does not meet that image, they cannot handle it. That is why they detest scrutiny so much. They really do not like being examined for the actions that they take. That is variable, of course, across government. Not all ministers are so sensitive or priggish, if you like, to the views of others, but I think a pattern has been established. We are on the way down the road towards reducing scrutiny, and I think that is a pity.

In summary, if you take my remarks today as a threat, do so, but they are not meant as a nasty threat. If you take changes to this chamber too far, remember that when the reaction comes it will be an overreaction, and that will not help anyone. So before you embark on the next set of changes, to either the committee system or something else, at least have those thoughts in the back of your mind. We are left in a difficult position with this report because we agree that, if you are going to do it, you should do it in a particular way, but you must understand—because initially we did not agree with doing it—we have to vote against the report. That should not be taken to mean that we are voting against the committee system of eight, with four members and all the other changes involved. We are saying that, if you are going to cross the Rubicon, the detail is fine. We are just not going to cross the Rubicon.

Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Democrats are also strongly opposed to the motion put forward by the Manager of Government Business in the Senate. In his contribution, he said that this is just part of the evolution of the committee system. Without getting into a debate about the biology of evolution, normally when people use the word ‘evolution’ in modern-day language they are talking about something developing, improving, going on to the next stage. This certainly does not do that. It is the devolution of the committee system. It is a move backwards to a time when the committee system worked less well. That was the whole reason why not just both major parties but also the Democrats, through the whip at the time, Vicki Bourne, negotiated a comprehensive improvement to the structure of the committee system in the Senate. That was done as a way of making the Senate committee system more responsive—not just more responsive to the parliament but more responsive to the public. So any suggestion that this is some next stage in the enhancement of the committee system is simply false.

I follow on from some of Senator Ray’s remarks by saying that I think that there really is a lost understanding—if there ever was an understanding—of the parliamentary system and how the parliament is meant to work. We seem to have a mindset that the Senate is just a variation on the House of Representatives, just another arm of the government for the executive government to use as it chooses—that it is not meant to play, in any sense, a separate role from the executive and a separate role in scrutinising the actions of the executive.

In preparing for the Procedure Committee’s examination of this issue in July, when the Senate first referred the government’s proposal, I went back and looked at the committee’s report from 1994 that looked at what the rationale was for making the changes. I also looked at some of the submissions from that time. I noted the submission from the coalition senators devoted a lot of time to arrangements for chairing committees. It went on in detail about how the British House of Commons arranges the chairs of various committees, the equivalent of the Senate’s legislative and general purpose standing committees, and how they are shared among the parties by agreement. Those committees elect their own chairs and are free to choose any member of the agreed party.

The submission talked about how chairs are shared in this way because they are seen as parliamentary positions, not government positions, and are seen as such by the public. This is in the House of Commons, mind you—that is, the lower house of the British parliament—and, in the upper house of the Australian parliament, the coalition senators in 1994 noted the importance of a chair of committees being shared as a way of demonstrating that these are not just government positions to be handed out as gifts by the government of the day and that they would be seen by the public as such. I noted, particularly, the paragraph put forward by coalition senators back in 1994, which said:

The sharing of chairs on standing committees in the Senate would enhance the parliamentary character of their work and improve the public standing as well as give representation to the non-government parties on the chair’s group.

Back in 1994, coalition senators thought that the sharing of chairs of these various committees, in rough proportion to the parties’ representation in the Senate, would enhance the parliamentary character of their work. What has changed? We all know what has changed: the government have a majority, a very narrow one but one nonetheless. So they are quite prepared to take an action that, according to their own arguments in 1994, will detract from the parliamentary character of the Senate committees’ work and will reduce their public standing. But they do not care about that, because what it will do is enhance government control, and that is what this is all about. There is a suggestion that this is somehow about preventing the Senate from misusing its powers or, as Senator Ellison vaguely suggested in his contribution, because the government’s will is being thwarted by unreasonable actions. Find us an example of the government’s will being thwarted by unreasonable actions of Senate committees. Senator Ellison seemed to suggest that he should be congratulated because the government are allowing legislation to be referred to committees.

We used to have a convention in this place, which I note is also breaking down—there was an example last week—that any individual senator who wanted to have legislation referred to a committee was entitled to do so. There was a recognition that an individual senator had a responsibility and a right to ensure that they were satisfied that there had been proper scrutiny of a piece of legislation. That convention is going out the window. And, because the government is sending through legislation, they want to be congratulated. Let us look at the detail. It is not just a matter of sending legislation to a committee; it is a matter of how long the committee gets to look at that legislation, and that is where real changes have also been made—to the detriment of the system. We have major pieces of legislation being forced through Senate committee processes in the space of a few weeks.

We have all been debating the disgraceful, disrespectful debacle of the truncated inquiry into the land rights legislation where the government’s own committee members openly stated that there was insufficient time to properly consider the legislation. Senator Ellison wants the government to be congratulated for that, when even government senators openly state in their committee reports that there was inadequate time to consider the legislation. At any other time, prior to government control of the Senate, if a committee had been in a situation where they felt there was inadequate time to consider legislation, the Senate would have moved to extend the time. It is a logical, responsible and appropriate thing to do if you are interested in ensuring that a potential law is given proper consideration and public input is taken into account adequately—but not under the brave new world of coalition control.

Under coalition control, if there is inadequate time—even from the coalition senators’ point of view—bad luck. It is all pushed through because the minister says so. That is clearly what happened with the land rights legislation. The minister insisted, so the government senators on the Senate committee obeyed. We have seen that with the Telstra legislation, the workplace relations legislation, the terrorism legislation, the Welfare to Work legislation and a range of other pieces of legislation. The minister insisted on a truncated time frame, and the coalition senators agreed. We have even had coalition senators agreeing to vote in favour of gagging themselves for legislation in this place. That is how tame they all are. They will gag and prevent themselves from being able to speak in a debate on legislation by voting in favour of a ridiculously short time frame for Senate committee inquiries. Yet the Manager of Government Business in the Senate wants to get some sort of accolade because the government is still allowing legislation to be referred to Senate committees. I recall a vote last week where they prevented a piece of legislation being referred to a Senate committee because they could not be bothered looking at it.

I would also note what happens when government get control—when they get a majority on committees and when they chair all committees. If you add up all of the committees that look at policy and related issues, we not only have these eight legislative and general purpose committees but also have a range of joint committees: the Australian Crime Commission; Corporations and Financial Services; Public Accounts and Audit; Migration; Electoral Matters; Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade; National Capital and External Territories; ASIO, ASIS and DSD; and Treaties. All of them are chaired by government MPs and all of them have a government majority.

I recall a time, even before the government got control of this Senate, when a matter was referred by this Senate to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, which is chaired and controlled by the government, and it just flatly refused to examine the issue. It was about the Australian government’s negotiations with the United States about exempting the US from the International Criminal Court. The committee reported back saying, ‘We can’t look at it.’ The Senate said, ‘No, you’ve made a mistake; you can look at it,’ and referred it again. The committee said, ‘No, we can’t.’ The Senate referred it to that committee a third time, saying: ‘Yes, you can look at it. You don’t need to wait for a treaty action to be able to examine it.’ The committee just flatly refused and said, ‘We will not look at this matter.’ That is what happens when the government gets control of committees.

Another thing that already happens with many of the joint committees and is starting to happen now with others is that matters do not get referred to committees in the first place unless the minister either says it is okay or provides the terms of reference. Is that what we are going to be reduced to? Will we just sit around waiting for the minister to give us some work to do so that we can hand down a report that will meet their needs and their desires? What is the point of having a parliamentary system if that is the direction in which we are going?

We have all of those joint committees that I mentioned and we now have the eight standing legislative and general purpose committees, and every single one of them will be chaired by a government member. Where is the proportionality in that? What happened to the argument that the coalition senators put forward with such strength back in 1994, saying that they should have proportionality with regard to the chairs of committees? As with many of these things, it went out the window as soon as the opportunity for some more power arrived. That, I suggest, is an example of the level of contempt that this government is clearly displaying towards the Senate. I believe it has always had that contempt towards the Senate. Governments tend to have contempt towards the Senate. They do not like the Senate because it gets in their way. In the past, this government has not had full reign and has not been able to display that contempt and neuter the Senate and slowly suffocate it. But now the opportunity is there, and certainly this government is not missing a chance to totally suffocate the Senate and its mechanisms for scrutiny. We all remember—I certainly do—the Prime Minister’s promise after the last election that he would use his Senate majority humbly and wisely. Clearly that is one of his more flagrant broken promises.

For the record, I indicate I have an interest in this issue and declare that I am currently chair of a Senate committee. If this motion goes through then I would not be a chair anymore. But I think all senators would recognise that that is not the reason for the position I am taking or, of course, for the position that all Democrat senators are taking. This is simply a clear and undeniable power grab by the government, and the defence put forward to date by the minister is so shallow that clearly there is no other reason for what is being done.

Again, to remove any possible doubt, I draw attention to the coalition senators’ own words from their own submission about committee structures, particularly chairs of committees, back in 1994. The clear issue at that time was about improving the public standing of Senate committees and enhancing the parliamentary character of their work. That is what we are stepping away from here. That is not of concern to the government. Indeed, I suspect it is of little concern at all to the government if Senate committees do lose some of their reputation in the public arena. I suspect it does not bother the government at all if the reputation of the Senate diminishes significantly, because the more the Senate’s reputation diminishes, the more we are left with just the government. That would mean moving closer to an elected dictatorship and closer to a lack of tolerance of any dissent or any alternative opinions that do not come from within government ranks. They have enough trouble tolerating alternative opinions within their own ranks, but there is a complete dismissing of any views from outside their own ranks.

Finally, I think it is worth noting one other point that needs to be raised whenever issues of Senate committee structures or processes come before this chamber. The other practice of this government that is becoming more prevalent is its completely appalling performance in responding to Senate committee reports. We are seeing longer delays between when the reports are tabled and when the government response appears. It is supposed to be within three months. You are doing very well if you get a response within 12 months from this government. Again, that leads to a situation where discredit is brought on the whole Senate. We all know how much work people put into preparing submissions and appearing before committee hearings, particularly when they are members of the general public rather than professional lobbyists. They treat it very seriously. People sometimes drive for hours in any direction to appear before a public hearing just to give 30 minutes of evidence because they think it will make a difference. How do you think they feel when the committee report appears and then there is nothing—no response from the government for 12 months, 24 months or longer? That practice is getting worse.

I noted in an investigation into this by the Sydney Morning Herald a year or so ago, somewhat to my surprise actually, that the government response time and delays were even longer when responding to House of Representatives committee reports. I can only assume that is because they do not take them seriously because they do not need to. That is the situation we are now facing in the Senate: tame Senate committees, totally government controlled, not doing references unless ministers agree and no need for urgency or a requirement to respond with timeliness at all, because there is no way that the Senate can impose any sanction or discipline on a minister or a government that does not respond. So another likely future deterioration is a government whose performance will become even worse than it already is in responding to the often very detailed, often very well thought through and often, I might say, cross-party unanimous reports of Senate committees.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Brian Harradine, the ex-senator from Tasmania, was always keen to point out as the father of the Senate that goodwill was the essential ingredient that marked this chamber and set it apart from the other place and, indeed, other parliaments. We have a good example now of how the government has forgotten that dictum.

What we are seeing of course is something that so often marks politics: that is, it is the conservatives who break the law, break the rules, break the precedent and break the honoured way in which tradition marks the way we progress in a democracy. I listened to Senator Ray talking about how the—

Rod Kemp (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for the Arts and Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, I rise on a point of order. I heard Senator Brown allege that his opponents were breaking the law—that conservatives were breaking the law. I assume he was referring to people on this side of the chamber, although some would not describe them as conservatives. I think it was an unparliamentary comment and I would urge Senator Brown, in the spirit in which this issue is being debated, to withdraw it.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, but you are asking me to rule on the point of order, Senator Kemp, and I do not think the comments were directly attributed to any senators in this chamber. I will not rule that they are unparliamentary.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In case Senator Kemp took that personally, it was not meant to apply directly to him in terms of the word ‘law’; the rest may well. And I think that Senator Kemp’s behaviour in flouting the standing orders of this place just a moment ago ought to be noted.

I was referring to Senator Ray’s much better contribution to the debate. In effect, he pointed out that when Labor, the Democrats and others had the numbers in this place during Labor’s period in office it was conceded that a quite remarkable degree of fairness came into the way in which the committees proceeded and, indeed, the way questions were asked in this place and so on. But that is very rapidly being lost now that the government has a majority. We see it expressed in the proposal before the Senate that the government control the Senate committee system. That means control of the outcomes and of the input, including witnesses, length of hearings, place of hearings and all those things which are so important to a committee system, which is ultimately responsible for picking up what the experts and the public have to say about legislation or other matters brought before the parliament, so that we as parliamentarians can be better informed when we make the final decision.

This proposal is not just an affront to the Senate; it is an affront to the Australian people. It is the executive of Prime Minister Howard saying: ‘We will limit the input of the Australian people to that which we will allow. We will control the Senate committee system to ensure that it does not come up with findings that we do not like.’ That is not the hallmark of a healthy democracy. It is more the hubris and the getting carried away with power that comes out of a government that has been in office too long. We will see more of it.

I spoke a lot during the last election campaign about the potential for the government to win the majority in the Senate. Nobody in the press gallery took that up at all, but I was right. We are seeing the result now. I predict that there will be a different vote for the Senate come the election next year. There will be a different vote because the people of Australia do not like this process. I think the government is quite foolish. Sure, for 12 months we will have to put up with the government protecting itself from any discomfort that might come out of an inquiry, anticipating where inquiries might go, heading them off if they are not going to be beneficial to the government and then, of course, writing and publishing the report at the end of the day. That is a totally unsatisfactory system as far as democracy for the Australian people is concerned but, temporarily, it is not unsatisfactory for the government.

But the Australian people are not fools. They are watching how this great house, which was established to look after the rights of states, to review what government is doing and to be a hand on the shoulder of government, is now being abused by the government simply because they have a majority. Australians are very, very keen on seeing the Senate exert itself as a brake on the excesses of government, and the brake has failed. I predict that the Australian people will reapply it at the next election. I think the government are being quite foolish. They are being self-interested, yes, but foolish nevertheless, because self-interest has to have a long-term trajectory. What the government are doing is short term and it will catch up with them.

‘We will be humble,’ said the Prime Minister when it was established that the majority in the Senate had gone to the government after the last election. ‘We will not treat this with hubris.’ But the proposals out before the Senate are self-indulgent; they come out of inflated ego and out of the government putting itself before proper democratic process in this great parliament of this great nation. Isn’t it extraordinary how those people who so often beat their chests, stand in front of the flag and use the national symbols end up pulling the rug from under things which are important to the nation? That is what is happening here today. There is a bit of hubris that has gone like a rocket right from the executive into the Senate. But ultimately the government will reap the whirlwind.

The people of Australia, I can tell the government, do not respond to just flag-waving. They have a great appreciation of and a great fealty to the symbols of this nation but they also recognise when those things are being subverted by people who have been entrusted with power and are abusing that trust. It will be interesting to see what happens after the election. Senator Ray is quite right in saying that so often it is the left side of politics that moves towards fairness—not just in social matters but in democracy—and it is the right side of politics which goes in the opposite direction, away from social fairness and away from democratic fairness as well.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Absolute rubbish!

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have this government attacking democracy itself and absolutely abusing its position, which came out of the last election and which it did not expect.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Wasn’t it democratic?

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I really do not mind too much the braying from opposite. You would expect that when they do not have a cogent argument to defend this process.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are talking about democracy.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let us look for a moment at the proposal before the Senate. In brief, it is that the number of committees be reduced. But it is also that the government gets the power to determine all that happens in those committees. It does that because it takes four of the votes. It apportions three to the Labor opposition and one to the crossbench and then it gives the chair a casting vote. What is more, under the standing order, which has not changed, a committee can delegate its powers in part or in whole to investigate a matter to three members of that committee. So, if the government did not like the way the committee was going, it would be able to give itself total power through that domination it has in the committees, and delegate an investigation to a subcommittee made up of government people only.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not true.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not true, says the senator opposite—and he will have his opportunity to speak. I say it is true. The government would say that they would not do that. I would say that the very fact that this proposal has been brought forward means not only that they are capable of it but that they will: protecting themselves will lead to them doing just that. The government have moved towards sidelining the Senate out of our democratic system. Like Senator Murray, whose figures I am about to use, the Greens have been looking at that. When it comes to declarations of urgency—that is, gagging or guillotining of debate in this place—there were none in the year 2003-04 and five in the following year. But in this year 2005-06 it has happened 26 times.

When it comes to the order for production of documents—that is, to get information out of government ministers—there were 33 such orders by the Senate in 2003-04, and those 33 were agreed to by the Senate. There were 25 sought and 25 agreed to in the election year 2004-05. Eleven have been sought in 2005-06 but only one has been agreed to. Suddenly the government was blocking proposals for the order of production of documents. As you know, Acting Deputy President, democracy is as good as the information that is supplied to it and, as the government knows, the best way to nobble the Senate or indeed the right of the electorate to take part in the democratic process is to remove the oxygen of information from that domain. If you look at references to the references committees which were blocked by a vote in this place, you see that two years ago there were only three and the year after that, the election year, there were seven. But in this year 2005-06 that number has suddenly risen to 16. That was the government using its majority.

If you look at non-government amendments to bills coming from the Greens, the Labor opposition, the Democrats and other members, there were 456 agreed to in 2003-04. There were 120 agreed to in 2004-05, part of which was after the government gained the majority here, although it had not given effect to it at that time. But, in the year 2005-06, that number suddenly plummeted to three—almost nothing at all. The facts speak for themselves. The government has decided—and I am talking here about the executive, not the parliament or the party room—

Rod Kemp (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for the Arts and Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a majority.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not the majority of anything. It is the Prime Minister’s office which dictates these matters and, through the Prime Minister, the executive.

Rod Kemp (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for the Arts and Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was proven today.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

‘Proven today,’ says the senator opposite; let me explain that. I also predicted, when it was found that the government was going to get a majority, that the heat would go off people on the crossbench, who have traditionally had to make up their minds and determine what happens in this place. One cannot forget Senator Harradine, who on a number of occasions walked down this very aisle while everybody waited to see which side he would sit on, because he had the casting vote and had been through a long and tortuous decision-making process. But that does not happen anymore because the government has the majority. The government did not expect, because it did not have an experience of this—

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Ferguson interjecting—

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

‘It did,’ says the senator opposite. The government did expect to see itself fractioning. According to the senator opposite—and I am interested to hear this, because I did not know it—the government did expect that it would see the cracking of the edifice of the Howard government in response to the pressure being applied to the government ranks. What has happened is that, by being put under the enormous pressure of making decisions on matters which are hugely complex but which go to our consciences, sterling members of the government, who must be praised and deserve the very worthy representation that they have in this place, have decided that they will break with the government when it becomes excessive. We have seen an example of that today. The government and the Prime Minister tend to go too far when they get all the power, and there is a reaction from within the ranks. If you look at what is happening to the Blair government in Britain, you will see what I mean.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Ferguson interjecting—

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

‘Wonderful,’ says the senator opposite. Does he say it is wonderful that the Prime Minister has been humiliated today? The Prime Minister wanted legislation rammed through this place. He thought he had the numbers to do it, but some people of conscience and of a greater decency than the Prime Minister have said, ‘We won’t go along with that,’ and so the government finds that the going gets tough. We have to thank those decent senators, and indeed those members of the House, who have stood up against the draconian components of the immigration legislation. We will see more of it.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Ferguson interjecting—

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I did say that the government has become arrogant, but there are people who do not go along with that arrogance. Thank goodness that from within the ranks of any large party which, through hubris, thinks that it is all-powerful and does not know where to constrain that power will come people of conscience and ethics who will say: ‘Too far! We will not go along with that.’ That is what we have seen today and in some previous votes, and we will see more of it.

I will tell you why. It is because Prime Minister John Howard has let the numbers in this parliament and the vote of the last election go to his head, and he does not know how to stand back and reassess his obligation to this nation. He does not know how to show a little humility and listen to people within his ranks when they say, ‘Prime Minister, that is a step too far.’ Other people will come out and attack those good people—that is the way it always happens—but there are occasions when principle, ethics and sheer humanity dictate that they will not be defied.

George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator George Campbell interjecting—

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! If Senators Kemp, Ferguson and Campbell would cease interjecting, we might get through this debate. I call the chamber to order.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am looking forward to the next 12 months in this great chamber. I do not think the government knows how to handle the hormones coursing through its veins in this situation, and I think it will come to regret that.

Rod Kemp (Victoria, Liberal Party, Minister for the Arts and Sport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is a very bad metaphor, Bob.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a very apt metaphor, Senator Kemp. The government cannot and will not be able to back off and retain the decency which is expected in a democratically elected parliament like this. We are going to see quite a lot more of that. The Greens will be campaigning over the next 12 months to rescue the Senate. We will be campaigning very strongly to make sure that when Australians go to the ballot box—on 4 August next year or sometime after that—they know that they have the option to take the majority away from the government, which is expressing its majority in such a crude fashion as in the proposed amendments to standing orders that we have before us at the moment.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have heard some rambling speeches from Senator Brown in my time, but that one just about takes the cake. That comes from a senator who, to the best of my knowledge, hardly ever attends committees. He is scarcely aware of what takes place in the committees on a day-by-day basis—whether it be estimates committees, references committees or legislation committees. I do not recollect ever attending a committee hearing with Senator Brown.

Senator Brown talked about proper democratic process. I would have thought that proper democratic process usually means that those who have a majority hold sway. The government is formed by those who have the majority; that is what a proper democratic process is. In this case, the proper democratic will of the people of Australia is reflected in the numbers currently in the Senate, and that is the proper democratic process. Senator Brown is very keen to talk about democracy. This is democracy at work.

When Senator Brown was talking about the report of the Procedure Committee, he was wrong about subcommittees. There cannot be a subcommittee consisting of only government senators. If you read the report and the standing orders carefully, you will find that there must be at least one opposition and one government member present, even on a subcommittee.

One of the other issues that Senator Brown raised was government senators ‘controlling’ the outcome of committee reports. In previous parliaments we have had situations where the outcome is controlled not by the majority of people in this place but by a minority. If that is democracy, it is a very strange view of democracy. In fact, we had references committees where there were three Labor senators and a Labor chair, and the Labor Party on its own could control the outcome of a references committee report. The chair had a casting vote; the government, with a majority of members in this place, had two members on those committees and minor parties had one. So, in fact, rather than a democratic process where the majority controlled the outcome, in the case of references committees we had a case where three Labor senators—a minority of people in this place—could control the outcome of a report, not even taking into account the wishes of the minor parties or government members, if they so desired. What we are talking about today is putting in place the proper democratic process.

The proposed make-up of the new committee system reflects the numbers in this place. The changes that were made to the committee system in 1994, in my early days in the Senate, reflected—

George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why didn’t you adopt the House of Commons structure?

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not know whether Senator George Campbell is on the speakers list but I am sure he can get on it if he wants to. The changes that were made to the committee system in 1994 also reflected the numbers in this place. All that we are proposing is returning to the pre-1994 situation where the make-up of committees from the Senate will reflect the numbers in this place. The government majority in this chamber will be reflected in the proposal to have eight committees in which the government has four members, the Labor opposition three and the minor parties one.

I listened with interest to Senator Ray’s contribution because I respect his contributions. He has had a long period of time in this place and he has seen many changes. I was not enamoured by his opening remark that this was the ‘execution of the committee system’. If we are to believe that this is the execution of the committee system, does that mean that the committee system that was in place for all of the Hawke Labor government and for a portion of the Keating Labor government did not work? We are only reverting to the numbers that were in existence throughout the whole of the Hawke Labor government. Yet Senator Ray says that this is the ‘execution of the committee system’.

He also said we should wait and see whether the chairs would be taken away from the government should the numbers change in the future. The opposition did not take away the chairs of committees when it changed the system in 1994. As a matter of fact, part of the agreement was that it would ensure that the government chaired all legislation and estimates committees, even though the government was in a minority. We ensured that that would happen. My recollection of those days is somewhat different from Senator Ray’s. I remember the proposal being explained in our party room, and one of the things that was explained to us at that time—whether it was a misapprehension, I am not sure; Senator Ray may think it was—was that legislation committees would deal with legislation, and all other matters would be referred to the references committees, which had taken over the place of the general purpose committees. I do not believe, certainly from my own recollection, that it was ever mentioned to us that legislation, if it was on a broad range of matters, could go to a references committee, as was the case in the last parliament and the parliament before it where matters, particularly of contention or of a political nature, were sent to references committees where the opposition always had the majority.

He talked about select committees. I am trying to recollect how many chairs of select committees went to the government, to reflect the numbers in this place. To the best of my knowledge, in the last six or seven years there has not been one select committee where a government member has been appointed to the chair. It was always either a Labor member who chaired the committee, with equal numbers to the government of the day, or, on one or two occasions, there were minor party chairs of select committees. Certainly, if we are talking about sharing select committee chairs around, to the best of my knowledge no select committee since we came into government has been chaired by a government member. So we talk about a reflection of the numbers in this place.

I do not intend to debate the issue of question time. That is a debate for a separate day. I have some personal views on question time which do not necessarily reflect the views of my party. I have always believed that for parliaments of both political persuasions question times are a farce. The best question time system I have seen is that which takes place in both the British parliament and the New Zealand parliament where you do not have the opposition asking questions they hope the government cannot answer and the government asking questions the ministers know the answers to. I do not think that is a very sensible way to conduct question time and never have, but that is a debate for another time and another place.

I do agree with the comments of Senator Ray when he said that once we got to the situation where we knew that the opposition was opposed to the change of committees per se, and once it was recognised that the changes would be made, the Procedure Committee got together to come up with the best outcome possible under the arrangements that had been proposed. I believe that eight on a committee is the best number for this place to be able to service, with four government members, three opposition members and one minor party member. Hopefully with eight people on a committee we will never get to the stage where committees, when they are looking at references, will visit other states of Australia with only two or three members of that committee. I think if people take the trouble to make submissions it is the responsibility of committee members to do their utmost to be there. So I think the fact that we are going to have eight on a committee is a step in the right direction.

The other significant change, which for want of a better term one might call the substitutes bench, was raised—and I am sure my colleague will not mind me saying this—by Senator Parry in our party room. Senator Parry said, ‘In order to solve this problem of substitute members, why don’t you run a substitute bench?’ Although we have not done quite that, I think the change of membership where we will be allowed to substitute members by way of letter offers much more flexibility, and I look forward with interest to see how well this works. I think it could be one of the very positive changes to come out of this procedure report, and it should ensure that we do not get a situation where there are only one or two people attending a committee hearing. There will be other people who will be prepared to take their places.

I agree with Senator Ray that our estimates system is one of the best in the world, and there is no proposal whatsoever to change that. I think the estimates system has worked well. At times I hear questions being put by the other side, saying that we are reducing the time of estimates. The estimates committees that I was on in May never went their full times because there were not enough questions to keep the relevant departmental people and ministers there. So all of this talk about cutting down on estimates time is a furphy, because if you cannot use all of the available time that is there at present then there is no need for extra days. I agree with Senator Ray—I believe that the way the estimates system works and will continue to work is one of the most transparent systems in the world, and I hope that it stays that way for all the foreseeable future.

It has been raised that the government has not allowed some references to be sent to reference committees in the past 12 months or so. I would pose the rhetorical question as to why any government would allow a political reference to go to a committee where a minority opposition can write a majority report. Why on earth would any government do that? I know that if the Labor Party were in our position they would not let it happen. They have cried foul about some references which could be deemed political, rather than information seeking, not going to a Labor-controlled committee so that a minority of people in this place can write a majority report. I do not believe that is democracy. We looked at it at length when we discussed which references should go to committees.

Senator Bartlett raised the issue of the chairs of the House of Commons committees, and I notice that Senator George Campbell by way of interjection raised it as well. It is like comparing chalk and cheese, because they are lower house committees. In the House of Commons, when they do have chairs of committees from both parties, the government always has a substantial majority on each of those committees. The only thing that is rotated is the chair, and the last time I looked something like 65 per cent of the members were from the governing Labour Party, even when there was an opposition chair.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But they appoint their own senators, too!

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I should take that interjection, Senator Evans; they do appoint their own upper house people, but I do not think we are moving to do that. The other point that Senator Ray made was that Senate committees in this place have always had a very good reputation for the work they do. I believe that there will be even better work done, because one of the problems that has existed in the past 12 months, while this government has had a majority in the Senate, is that it has not allowed references to go to reference committees simply because it knows that the report will be written by the opposition from a minority position.

There are a number of senators on this side who spoke at length in our own discussions as to what should take place. We believe, and those who can remember will know, that prior to the change of the committee system in 1994 there were some outstanding issues dealt with by committees, including the legislative and general purpose committee where the government had a majority. Senators worked very hard, and because the government had a majority they were not afraid to accept a reference from this place or from the committee itself that might to some people look very controversial. Because the report would not be controlled by the opposition or a minority, prior to 1994 they allowed those controversial references to go to committees. Many members in our discussions in our party room are of the view that we should be able to look into controversial issues with the new structure of the Senate committees in the knowledge that the report will not be controlled by a minority opposition viewpoint. Of course they can still put a minority report in, as we did in the earlier days, prior to 1994. There was more consensus and there were more unanimous reports, I think, in those days than in recent times, simply because of the political nature of many of the references where, with the government not having the numbers, it cannot have any say in what is actually put to the references committees.

I commend these changes to the Senate. As I said, there was a good deal of discussion when the model we are putting before the chamber today was dealt with at the Procedure Committee. We recognise that the opposition and the minor parties are opposed to any change at all, but once it was agreed, reflecting the numbers in the Senate, that there would be changes, I think there was very good, amicable cooperation in trying to determine the best outcomes for the government’s proposals to revert to one committee. I commend the recommendations of the Procedure Committee to the Senate and I look forward to the time when the new committee system is put in place. Only after it has been in place for six or 12 months will we be able to judge the effectiveness of these changes. I hope and trust that those changes will be beneficial to our democratic system.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to speak to the Procedure Committee report. I do so because I think it is one of the most important issues to come before the Senate in this parliament. We had a debate about this in the previous session. I think Senator Ray referred to it as the reading of the will. It certainly is the case that there has been an attempt to anaesthetise the debate. I do not know whether it has died, but certainly the government is not interested in having any focus on this issue. I think Senator Ray indicated on behalf of the opposition that we will be voting against the Procedure Committee report.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Why didn’t you come to the Procedure Committee?

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I deliberately did not attend the Procedure Committee because I wanted to maintain my capacity to make the comments I am going to make now.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But you didn’t contribute.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I deliberately did not attend and I asked Senator Ludwig to be my proxy. At the heart of this there are two issues. One is the question of whether we ought to be moving to a single committee system with a government chair, and there is a set of issues that flows from that in terms of numbers of committees, numbers of participants et cetera. The Procedure Committee dealt with those detailed questions, but the government made it very clear that the fundamental issue would not be debated at the Procedure Committee. I do not want to disparage what the Procedure Committee did, because I think they did the best job they could with what was given to them in terms of the underlying principle.

My beef, my argument, my serious concern is with the underlying principle. I made that clear when Senator Minchin announced he would be making those changes and I make it clear again today. What we have now is, if you like, the emperor with no clothes. The clothes have been removed. We had, when Senator Minchin sought to bring these changes on, a pretence of some intellectual support for the changes. A whole rash of claims was made about what these changes would bring for the efficiency of the Senate’s operation. All that is gone—all that is long past.

When the Procedure Committee got down to the discussion and the detail, I think it became obvious to all there that Senator Coonan’s suggestions were unworkable and we went back to, fundamentally, the system that we had but with one major change—the change that the government was going to insist upon: a government majority in all of the committees of the Senate. That is what this is about. Forget all the other rubbish, forget all the other contributions about numbers of committees, how many senators are on them and that stuff, which is of interest to a few in this chamber, but that is all. People listening to the debate, people who are interested in the future of the Senate and the future of parliamentary democracy in this country, only need to understand one thing: this is a change by the government for the government. This is the government taking control of the Senate and entrenching its power to control what the Senate does. That is all this is about.

To be fair to Senator Ferguson, towards the end of his remarks he was fairly honest about that. It is purely about power, purely about the government saying, ‘We have the numbers, we intend to use them and we intend to change the system to enshrine that power.’ Whatever happened to having 10 committees rather than eight because that would provide more committees et cetera? That is all gone. What happened to the claims that we would have more hours of estimates committees? That is all gone. What happened to dealing with the fact that we have to strengthen the committee system? That is all gone.

It is all gone because it was all nonsense—it was all window-dressing. It was all designed to try and give Senator Minchin something to hang on to when he tried to justify what was really going on. All those fig leaves have gone and we are down to the tintacks. We are down to what this is all about. What this is all about is power. It is all about the government seizing control of the Senate committee system. Anyone who knows anything about it knows that.

The other beauty was the claim that this was an evolution. It is an evolution and therefore we are going back to the system we had in 1994. Am I the only one who notices that there is some sort of inconsistency in that? We are going to have an evolution and we are going to go back to where we were. It is complete nonsense.

Government Senators:

Government senators interjecting—

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You all know it is nonsense. Apart from something to do with giving the government more chairs, there was nothing at all in the proposal that was designed to improve the functioning of the Senate, nothing at all that was designed to improve accountability and nothing at all that was designed in the interests of the Senate or the parliamentary process in this country. What we are down to after we strip away all the nonsense is that the government by this measure will enshrine its control of the committee system. We will have one committee rather than the paired sets we had previously. But the key change is that the government will have a majority on all committees. The government will have a majority in both the inquiries into legislation and the inquiries into references.

Senator Ferguson and others have made a bit of a thing about how they do not want a minority writing the majority report. I am actually not terribly fussed about the majority and minority report. It is the process that gives us the benefits. It is the process that allows accountability to work. The key issue for us is not necessarily the majority report. The key issues go to what, how, when and who: what issues we inquire into, how we inquire into them, when we inquire into them and who we get to hear from. Those are the key functions that define the committee system and that allow us to hold the executive accountable. What the government has done is to seize control of who will determine what we inquire into, how we inquire, when we inquire and who we hear from. That is what this is about—it is about the government seizing control of those processes. Senators will make those reports, but under the non-government references committee majority the Senate committees were able to go where government did not want them to go. They were able to go to those issues that the government did not want examined. They were able to go to those issues that held the government accountable, and that function will go. It has gone in two stages: one, because the government knocks off the references—it will not allow them to be asked.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It does that now. We already have that control.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, Senator Ferguson, you have abused your power on more than one occasion.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You’re not getting any references.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is correct. First of all they have started rejecting bona fide inquiries into important issues that the public wants examined. So they abused it in the Senate, but that is not enough for them. They then need to seize control of any inquiry because they have been a bit concerned that after committee inquiries have started, even though they have exerted their power inside the Senate chamber, the committees are actually going into areas that might cause the government some embarrassment. So what do they do? The numbers in Senate are not enough. The ability to block a reference, to block a return to order and to block any mechanism of accountability that the Senate would want to insist upon is not enough. They need absolutely total power; they need absolutely total control: ‘So in addition to that we’ll make sure we’ve got the chairmanship and the majority vote on every committee so that we can have control over everything and we can have the power—

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You’d do it.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Ferguson, not only wouldn’t we do it, we did not do it.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, you did.

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The system that came into place was based on non-government majorities.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In 1993 you did. What about before 1994?

Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

All through the system since 1994: non-government majorities. Do you know why? Because we agreed with you. We agreed with you when you had some courage, when you had the courage of your convictions, when you argued for the accountability mechanisms of the Senate and when you said the accountability role of the Senate was important. Where have you gone now? You have run away. You do not believe that stuff anymore because you have government.

As Senator Ray said, that will not last forever. The wheel will turn, but I will not be talking about retribution because I fundamentally believe in the institution of the Senate. I think it has taken on a proper function in our democracy. I think it does good work. I actually think the Senate committee system has improved accountability and has improved parliamentary democracy in this country. If it has done so, why would you try and turn the clock back? Because your interest in control and power drives you to that. That is the only reason, and all the farcical arguments that are advanced about improving Senate efficiency, providing more committees, greater participation and greater allocation of work among committees—all are nonsense and all have disappeared. When we got down to the guts of it there was only the one thing that the government wanted and that was power. They wanted control of the committee system and that is what is at the heart of the proposition today. All the rest has been stripped away.

It is about the government seeking to emasculate the power of the Senate to hold it accountable. We have seen that arrogance and we have seen that abuse of power in everything this government have done since they got control of the Senate. Since 1 July 2005, at every step, they have sought to emasculate the Senate, to entrench their power, to use their numbers to alter the way the Senate works and to reduce the scrutiny upon them. They have acted in self-interest on all occasions, be it question time, be it the powers of return to order, be it the timing of committee inquiries and be it on the capacity of the Senate to examine legislation.

At one stage we had 300 amendments dropped on the table and we debated them within the hour. No-one had a clue what was in them. We were denied the capacity to look at important legislation. More importantly, we were denied the opportunity to hear from Australian citizens. One of the key functions of the Senate, one of the things it has done best, is it has engaged the Australian community in debates about legislation and issues of public concern. People appearing at committee hearings have provided valuable input. They have provided advice, opinion and technical advice and they have allowed for us to have a much better system. They have actually enhanced the role of the Senate and the role of the parliament. That fundamental enhancing of our role has been as a result of us being able to invite in people with an interest in a subject, with an interest in a piece of legislation and to hear from them, to test their views and to use that to improve legislation or contribute to public policy debate.

The government does not like that. It does not like community involvement and it does not like debate because when you get that clash of opinions, when you get the debate, the government has to answer—it has to be held accountable for a policy decision it has taken. We have seen that with the migration legislation. The government has been unable to win the argument. The legislation was wrong, it was wrongly based, and even the government’s own members came to that view. That is the sort of process we want in our democracy. That is the sort of process that the committee system of the Senate has done well. That is what has served parliament and this chamber well over the years as the system has developed.

For the government to try and wipe that out is a very retrograde step. They stand condemned for it because it is not what the Australian people want. The government have overreached. It is often a sign of a decaying government that they seek to entrench their power when they cannot win the political arguments. They seek to abuse the system, to change the rules, to express their contempt for debate and criticism by seeking to shut down that debate and criticism. What we have seen in recent times is the government increasingly inclined to do that because they cannot win the debate. They have run out of ideas, they have run out of an agenda, and the decay is eating away inside the government. How do they deal with that? They deal with it by trying to shut down criticism and trying to shut down the debate: if you cannot win the argument you end the argument. This is what this is about. The government seek to end the debate, they seek to end the argument, by removing the mechanisms that allow the Senate to do that.

It is a most important matter. I know that the Procedure Committee report will be carried. The work that the committee has done on the minutiae of the processes is important because it will allow the committees to function within the constraints of what the government is doing. But make no mistake: this is about removing the capacity of the Senate to act as a check on the executive. This is the legislature being restricted in its capabilities. It is about the Senate being prevented from doing the sort of work that has proved so effective as a check on the executive power in this country. The Senate’s ability to do its work and the Senate’s ability to do what it does best is being seriously curtailed.

I know that we will not win that debate inside the chamber. We cannot win that argument with the government, because the government is too fixated on its own needs and its self-interest. It thinks that, by changing the rules, it will entrench itself and cling to power. But it will have exactly the opposite effect. Whenever governments have gone down this path, it always turns against them, because people recognise it for what it is.

I have been talking to a lot of people about what has been happening in the Senate in recent months—a lot of people who are not Labor supporters; a lot of people who take an interest in public policy, in governance and in the national life. They are all expressing concern to me about these types of measures. They all know that no government ought to be totally unchecked. They all know that a government that is allowed to operate in the shadows, in darkness and without being held accountable is good for neither governance nor democracy.

I think people will consider these issues very seriously when the next election occurs. People will examine whether it is smart to allow any government to have a majority in the Senate. Certainly no matter what will happen in the next election—and I hope and will be working for a Labor victory—it is important that people examine closely whether having a coalition majority in the Senate, be it with a conservative or a Labor government, is a good thing.

I would argue very strenuously that it is not a good thing and this sort of step proves that argument. This sort of measure shows that a government that is unchecked will seek to entrench its power and will seek arrogantly to abuse the processes and change the rules in furtherance of one end and one end alone—preservation of its power. That is all this is about—preservation of the government’s power.

We think there is a better way and that we can do much better than this—that the Senate can continue to play its proper role, the role that it has taken on in recent years, and that we can make a useful contribution to the parliamentary process and to Australian democracy. But these sorts of measures will make that very difficult indeed. These measures, combined with the restriction in the number of questions, the control over the legislative process and the failure to allow proper debate in a whole range of areas, mean that the government and the executive are getting a tighter grip increasingly on the parliament. They are getting a tighter grip on the capacity to hold them to account. That is not good for our democracy and it ought to be opposed.

Labor will be opposing the measure that lies at the heart of the government’s grab for power and the government’s attempt to entrench in the standing orders of the Senate its control over all the Senate’s activities. The things that the Senate has done best will be severely curtailed. The role of the committees in holding the government to account and in shining the light into areas of government administration where governments prefer there not to be a light shone will be restricted by the measures contained in this Procedure Committee report.

The government is entrenching its control over what the committees inquire into, how they inquire into matters of public importance, when they do it and whom they may speak to. We have seen already in the legislation committees the government trying to restrict who may appear as witnesses, to restrict the time available to committees to a day in Canberra when they are matters of great importance around the country, to restrict what we may look at and to restrict how we might look at those things. That is not good for our democracy. That is not good for the ongoing role of the Senate.

The Senate ought to be able to act as a check on government and act as a strong accountability mechanism. The government seizing control of the committee system will not allow Liberal senators to be more independent, which is the perverse argument some have advanced. It will allow the executive and the government to determine what work the committees do, how they do that work, when they do that work and whom they speak to. The executive and the minister will have total control over the work of the committees and their areas. That means the government will not be held to account as it should be.

Labor are strongly opposed to the changes to the standing orders that flow from this Procedure Committee report. We think they are a backward step. We pledge to reverse them. We hope that, following the next election, the Senate is composed in such a way that the coalition will not have the numbers to continue down this path of seeking to entrench measures which work against the Senate’s important accountability role. We hope that these will be reversed quickly. (Time expired)

Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It has been interesting to listen to what has been said by members of the opposition about these proposed changes, but I have to say that their comments have been very misleading and they have misrepresented in the grossest way the intentions of the government.

Santo Santoro (Queensland, Liberal Party, Minister for Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is not unusual, is it?

Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not at all unusual. The Senate is a great institution that is recognised as a house of review around the world and it will continue to play that role in the Australian parliament when the changes which the government proposes to the Senate committee system are implemented and put in place. I am sure that in reality Senator Chris Evans knows full well that what the government is doing is no more than bringing the Australian Senate committee system into line with the committee systems which exist in other great parliaments of the world, including the United States Congress, the House of Commons and other congresses such as the National Assembly of Indonesia, where there is a single committee system in place. The dual committee system which we have had in this country to this day has been something of an aberration, not duplicated and not found anywhere else in the world.

When Senator Evans was speaking, he talked about how the government will determine the ‘what’—that is, what is inquired into; the ‘how’—that is, what an inquiry is about; the ‘when’—that is, when the committees hold meetings; and the ‘who’—that is, who would be there—under this new system. He seemed to imply that somehow the ‘what’, the ‘how’, the ‘when’ and the ‘who’ would be different with our new system from what they were under the old system. I really do not think that is the case at all.

The Senate carries out its house of review functions through the committee system. If you think about it, the estimates process is not going to change at all under this new system. We will still have three lots of estimates during the year. In fact, in the last lot of estimates, in May, there were eight committees and they each had four days of hearings. So, effectively, there were 32 hearing days on which to question the government at budget estimates. At estimates we are still going to have the heads of the departments and the head of each program. The senators, just as they usually do and have for all of the eight years that I have been here, will be free to ask any question they like, more or less, of the heads of every program within every department.

So the estimates process is not going to change at all. Estimates will be there. It is one of the great features of the Australian parliament that we do have this very rigorous budget estimates system. It is, I believe, not equalled anywhere else in the world. That is not going to change. I cannot see that the proposed alterations to the committee system will in any way diminish the effectiveness of the estimates process.

Then there is the question of referrals of matters to the committees for investigation. Let us look at how that process works. Senator Evans talked about the ‘what’—that is, what is referred to committees. What is referred to committees—the subject of referrals—is determined by the Senate. The Senate refers matters to committees. That process will continue. It will be the Senate that refers subjects to the committees for their inquiries.

Senator Evans’ next heading was the ‘how’—how the inquiries are conducted. The manner in which they are conducted now is very much a matter for the individual committees to decide. The committees decide where they will hold their hearings, where they will travel to and who they will invite to come along as witnesses. Usually, when you think about it, the secretariats have a suggested list of people who might be good witnesses because they are the people who are known to be involved in whatever the subject matter of the inquiry is.

The Senate committees advertise, as we all know. In a big advertisement in the Australian every two weeks, every Senate inquiry is advertised. People who are interested in whatever the subject is are invited to make submissions. That process will continue to apply under this new system. The committees will decide how their inquiries are conducted. Senator Evans’ question about the ‘how’ and his implication that, under this new system, the method of conducting inquiries will somehow be corrupted is quite wrong. Nothing, in my opinion, will change very much at all.

Then there is the question of the ‘when’. Senator Evans raised the ‘when’ question—that is, how often the committees meet. Again, how often the committees hold hearings is a question for the members of the committees, Madam Acting Deputy President Moore, as you well know. The committees determine how often they will meet. Just as they do now, so they will continue to do in the future.

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Rubbish! Absolute rubbish!

Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Faulkner says that is rubbish, but he must have served on—

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Committees do not decide when estimates committees meet.

Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, you should have listened a little longer, Senator Faulkner. We have dealt with estimates. We are now talking about references to committees. When the committees hold their hearings is very much determined by the membership of the committees.

The other heading Senator Evans had was the ‘who’—that is, who comes to the committee hearings. Again, that is determined by the committees. The committees select the witnesses who will appear before them on the basis of their knowledge, expertise and point of view. We all know, having been on lots of committees—all senators do serve on lots of committees—that after a while there is a pattern. There are people with one point of view and people with a different point of view, but they tend to fall into little groups. That pattern, I am sure, will continue. There will be witnesses invited to appear before these committees who will have a broad spectrum of points of view.

So, in fact and in practical reality, there will be very little change to the way the committees work and the Australian Senate will continue its grand tradition as a house of review. The Senate, I must say, has not always done that as well as it has done it in recent years. The Senate committee system was only established in 1970, I am told. It is a bit hard to know what senators did with their time before that. Certainly in the far distant future, when the electoral system was very different to that which exists now, the proportional system, there tended to be an all-or-nothing principle in the Senate, so that you would get—

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You mean ‘in the far distant past’, not in the future.

Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I said ‘in the far distant past’. Senators tended to all have one point of view. But, under the proportional system, we have a spectrum of views in the Senate, representing, perhaps better than the House of Representatives, a broader spectrum of points of view in Australian politics. Because of that, that broader view will be reflected in the composition of the Senate committees. I am sure that they will continue to conduct inquiries in the manner they have in the nine-odd years that I have been here.

Then there is the question of reports. Senator Evans seems to think that, because the government would chair those committees, the reports would be radically different from the reports produced by Senate committees now. I must say that I find that very hard to comprehend, because Senator Evans knows as well as I and Senators Moore, Abetz and Faulkner that all parties in the Senate will be represented on the committees. Of course, in writing their reports, the senators will again form opinions and no doubt they will fall into party groups. At times there will be unanimous reports and perhaps on many other occasions there will be majority reports and minority reports. If you thumb through the reports that have been presented to the Senate over the last 10 years you will find, surprise, surprise, that that is the way things usually go: you get majority reports, dissenting opinions or minority reports and, every so often, unanimous reports. In terms of the content of the reports and their recommendations, I do not think anything is going to change greatly under this system.

I happen to know that Senator Evans has written a letter to all chambers of commerce in Western Australia, and no doubt to many other bodies around the state, telling them that the government is about to emasculate the Senate committee system, that the Senate will no longer be a house of review—

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sounds like a good letter.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Fisheries, Forestry and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Remember, Senator Faulkner, that he voted for Mr Latham.

Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, indeed. I think that Senator Evans is guilty of gross misrepresentation, for the reasons that I have already been through in this discussion. The Senate is going to be preserved and protected in its role as a house of review. As I said, we will still have Senate estimates hearings and the Senate committees will still conduct inquiries into various matters. The fact that we are amalgamating the Senate legislation and references committees is really taking the Senate committees back to how they were when they were first introduced in 1970 and as they remained until the mid-nineties.

As I said before dinner, around the world, the concept of having a dual committee system under a single name or heading is something of an aberration. If you go to the United States Senate you will find that there is the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee and the Committee on Ways and Means, but there are not separate legislation and references committees; there is just one committee. Likewise, the House of Commons in the United Kingdom does not have a dual committee system. There are select committees which cover portfolios—an education committee, a defence committee or a health committee—and it is a unitary system. In Jakarta, at the National Assembly of Indonesia, interestingly enough they have what they call commissions, which are essentially the same as our committees. They do not have a references commission and a legislation commission for health, education or defence; they simply have commissions with numbers—commissions one to nine—and designated purposes. The members of those commissions, who come from all parties, contribute to the deliberations of those commissions.

It is very hard to find anywhere else in the world which has the rather curious dual system that we have in the Australian Senate. Even though the system is unique, it has to be considered something of an aberration. In fact, it must be regarded as a very inefficient way of doing things. Why have two lots of committees covering the same ground when you could have one committee, which would obviously have great efficiencies? It means that it would be easier for the staff. In fact, under our system we will expand the membership of each of the committees so that the senators who are on both committees, the references and the legislation committees, will very largely fit into the new committee system. The fact that we are bringing our committee system into line with those of parliaments around the rest of the world is really a very important point to bear in mind. As I have said, our whole committee system has been something of an aberration. We are simply streamlining it and making the system more efficient.

I find that the whole approach of the Labor Party to this matter does not seem to ring true. After all, from 1970 through the era of the Whitlam government and then through almost the whole era of the Hawke and Keating governments, the Labor Party was content to have a unitary committee system. It was a system which set up the house of review function of this Senate and which was regarded as working very well.

Just to summarise, in my opinion the role of the Senate as a house of review will continue under this new arrangement in a very effective way and the Australian Senate will continue to be respected around the world for the role that its committee system plays, especially in estimates, in examining the executive and in calling to account the expenditure of the government. As I have said, the changes will bring Australia’s legislature into line with other important legislatures, including the United States Senate, the House of Commons and many other legislatures around the world which have unitary systems. It is very interesting: no-one at all in this debate has come up with the name of another parliament which has a duplicate committee system of the kind which the Australian Senate has had up until this legislation was proposed. With that, I conclude: I believe that this committee system will work effectively, well and in the best interests of the Australian people.

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is nothing worse, is there, than receiving a history lesson from an ignoramus.

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Acting Deputy President, I rise on a point of order: that was quite unparliamentary.

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think ‘ignoramus’ is perfectly parliamentary.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Faulkner, I do not agree; I think you should withdraw that.

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you do not agree, I will have to withdraw it: I withdraw it. There is nothing worse, is there, than receiving a history lesson from somebody who knows nothing about history. That, unfortunately, is the situation we have with Senator Eggleston, who imagines, who dreams about, what it must have been like in the Senate prior to the introduction of proportional representation in 1949 by a Labor government, the Chifley government. He dreams about what it might have been like as far as the activities of senators were concerned prior to the massive changes to the committee system, the introduction of a real Senate committee system, driven by the Labor Party in the very early 1970s. The person who is properly given credit for that is former Labor senator Lionel Murphy, who drove those reforms at that time.

There is nothing worse than a person who talks about the appropriate role of the Senate as a house of review but fails to understand that that is precisely the role that the Labor Party has always believed that this Senate should pursue: a house of review, a house of scrutiny. The speaker prior to me failed to mention the abuse of process driven by the Liberal Party in 1975, when the whole history of this chamber was turned on its head with the most massive abuse of Senate powers we have ever seen in the history of the Commonwealth of Australia.

It is very unfortunate to hear someone speak about a committee system when they do not really understand the background to its introduction. There was no understanding from Senator Eggleston that this original duality, the paired committee system, was something that was very warmly welcomed by the opposition of the day—again, in the early 1990s, the Liberal opposition of the day—as around the chamber these changes were negotiated. It is the Liberal Party—the coalition—that has changed its view so massively in relation to the way the Senate committees should work. It was the Liberal Party that gave great support to the paired committee system that Senator Eggleston now tells us the coalition is so opposed to and never supported in the first place. It is appalling to receive a history lesson from someone so ignorant.

This is a very unusual Procedure Committee report that we have before us today. The motivation for the report? Venality. The justification for the report? Non-existent. The content of the report? Realistic, I would say, in the circumstances—the unacceptable circumstances—that the Senate faces. I believe it would be a very good analogy to say that the Senate Procedure Committee report proposes a well-designed procedural house but one built upon the sand, because there is no need for this report and the changes that it contains. It is very important—and I want to draw the attention of the Senate to the fourth paragraph of the report. It says:

However, Opposition and Australian Democrat members of the committee indicated that their participation in this inquiry should not be taken as support for the restructuring of the committee system with which they strongly disagreed in principle. Having considered the mechanics of the restructure, the committee leaves it to the Senate to determine its merits.

I want to make it absolutely clear: there is no need for these changes at all. These are the changes we did not have to have except for the fact that a couple of greedy people in the government wanted to filch committee chairs—that is why I described this earlier as venality. It is all about money—a couple of coalition senators getting their hands in the taxpayers’ pockets, a couple of coalition senators wanting to be chairs of committees. This drove the original proposition grandly presented by Senator Minchin, the Leader of the Government in the Senate, and Senator Coonan, the Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate. Again, it is very well described in the Procedure Committee report, so I will present it, as I so often do, to the Senate without spin. Let me quote the third paragraph of the Procedure Committee report. It says:

The Leader and Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate had proposed that legislation and references committees be amalgamated, into legislative and general purpose committees, and that ten such committees be established.

That is right. They proposed amalgamation, which you have heard about, and they proposed that the number of committees be increased from eight to 10. As I say, the motivating factor is greed—another couple of coalition senators trying to get a committee chair position.

It is not just a power grab. It is not just an abuse of power. It is true to say, of course, that it is driven by the fact that the government now has a majority in the Senate. That is what has driven Senator Minchin and Senator Coonan’s change, and hasn’t it been an own goal! It has really blown up in their faces. What they have had to do is try and scramble around and use the experts that the Labor Party provide on the Procedure Committee to dig them out of this hole, to see if we can try and establish a reasonable outcome from this terrible abuse and this power grab and money grab of the coalition. The Procedure Committee has done its best, but it is a procedural house built upon the sand. There is no need for these changes and we should not be debating these changes now.

Yes, there is a proposal to extend the number of committees from eight paired committees to 10. That was the original proposal. You can read about it in the committee report. When the pressure has been put on the government to explain, at any stage, what the extra two committees might do, there has never been an answer. No-one had ever thought of that. They had only thought about the dollars and cents going into the pockets of the chairs. No-one had ever thought about what these two committees might do. No, they only thought about the fact that there would be two extra chairpersons from the coalition parties. No proposals at any stage were developed. No-one had bothered to check at any stage with the Department of the Senate or the Department of Parliamentary Services whether in fact it was achievable to extend the number of committees from eight to 10, whether we could do it, whether the logistics actually allowed it to be done.

I want to commend to any interested senators or members of the public two reports which have been tabled in the Senate. One is a report from Mr John Vander Wyk, Clerk Assistant Committees. Mr Vander Wyk, I know, is about to retire. We wish him well in his retirement and commend him for his report dated 26 July 2006 about the proposal to alter the Senate committee system. I merely draw attention to this particular report because it talks about the difficulties in terms of the current arrangements—the accommodation problems, the staffing problems, the broadcast problems and the like. It is worth reading. It is only a couple of pages and I commend it to senators.

Then of course we also had a report from the Department of Parliamentary Services. That report was provided originally to the Procedure Committee, and now it has been tabled in the Senate, under the hand of Ms Hilary Penfold QC, the Secretary of the Department of Parliamentary Services. I have a little time available to me to talk about this report because the legislation program has been changed in the Senate, because Mr Howard has been humiliated by the withdrawal of the unauthorised arrivals bill. We have a little time on our hands. The government were very keen to have this debate because they have no idea what else they might wish to debate this evening.

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are plenty of other bills; don’t worry.

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You finally have a bill to bring on, do you, Nick? Very well done! So it is not a complete crisis around there at the ministerial wing. You are starting to get your act into gear. It has only taken you a few hours since the bill was pulled this morning. Let me quote what Ms Penfold QC said in this letter that has been tabled. Paragraph 3 is about proposed changes to the committee system. It states:

To provide transcription, broadcasting and security services for the proposed fifth committee—

I interpolate: this is Senator Minchin’s fifth committee—

DPS would require additional resources to cover costs associated with increased overtime, employing and training additional casual staff, or increased outsourcing of transcription work.

What a pity that Senator Minchin and Senator Coonan did not think of any of that before they went for the money grab for the two extra chairs. Nobody bothered to think of that. Then there is paragraph 5 of Ms Penfold’s quite interesting letter to the Procedure Committee. It states:

Even using the current staffing and panel arrangements to full capacity, if the Senate committees convene during a House of Representatives sitting period (when a variable and unpredictable number of House committees also convene), it will not be possible to meet current transcript turnaround timeframes. Further research would be needed to determine whether it is possible to extend the present panel arrangements to new companies, but it might also be necessary to re-negotiate transcript turn-around times.

Nobody thought of that either. After all, when you go in the dash for cash, you do not worry about all these logistical issues of whether the committees can actually meet. Then Ms Penfold went on to say:

If television broadcasting of the fifth committee is required, there may not be a suitable room available.

We will have the committee meet out on the lawn if there is no suitable room available! She goes on to say:

The current four estimates committees are televised from committee rooms 2S1, 2S3, 2R1 and the Main Committee room. The only other committee room that has television broadcasting equipment is committee room 2R3—which is used by the House of Representatives Main Committee. In time, it may be possible to fit out another Senate Committee room to provide televised broadcasting capacity but this work is not currently included in DPS forward work plans, and any such proposal would require appropriate funding support.

Nobody thought about that. No-one worried about the logistics of whether you could actually have the committees meet, whether you would have the rooms available, whether there would be staff available, whether you could have transcript and Hansard services available, whether you could broadcast them or whether there would be the usual audiovisual services—no-one gave a damn about any of that. After all, when you are in the big race for the money, the big race for the brown paper bag, why would you worry about that sort of thing? Senator Coonan and Senator Minchin have been badly exposed on these matters.

I am pleased, I have got to say, that Senator Minchin has backed down on this—that is, he is showing a bit of leadership. It is becoming a pattern. It is the second backdown of the day. We have had Mr Howard’s backdown on the unauthorised arrivals bill and now we have had Senator Minchin’s backdown on the Senate committee issue; and it was the right issue to back down on. I have heard some nonsense in my time, but the speeches I have heard from coalition senators about the way the Senate is working since the government majority are absolute rubbish—absolute nonsense. We know, Madam Acting Deputy President Moore, that we do not have referrals to existing committees on any matter that is contentious. Forget that; it does not happen anymore. We do not have the establishment of select committees on any matter that is contentious. The sort of Senate inquiry we had into a certain maritime incident—the lies of ‘children overboard’—will never happen while there is a government majority in this place.

We have had the rorting of question time—the order of questions in question time—to get a few extra dorothy dix questions for the government. And how bad those dorothy dix questions really are! What benefit does it really give to have a couple of ministers get up and make a complete goose of themselves during question time? For example, consider the puerile performance of Senator Ian Campbell in question time today on the scientific basis for environmental decisions. It was a bit of a laugh. We were laughing. His own team were laughing at him. Everyone was laughing at him. But it is a real waste of time, when it is all said and done. And, of course, we do not have orders for the production of documents passed in this chamber anymore. There are no more returns to order. You do not see that happen anymore.

The accountability mechanisms of the chamber have been massively watered down. What was said by the previous speaker about estimates committees is not true. Estimates committees are meeting for fewer days; have a look at the pattern. They are meeting for less time and there is less opportunity as a result to hold the government and the executive accountable. I happen to believe that the Senate committee system is the best accountability mechanism we have in this parliament. The Senate committee system working well is the Senate at its best. And it is not only the best accountability mechanism in this parliament; it is the best accountability mechanism in any parliament in this country.

What a pity that we have continual attempts by the Howard government to neuter that accountability system. I think that it is self-defeating, actually. You see, I accept that the Senate estimates committees can, for example, be a good forum for oppositions. I accept that. If they are well used—and they are not always well used—and effectively used they can be good forums for oppositions. I also happen to think they are good for governments too. I think it is a good thing that a minister or an official knows that a question might be asked at a Senate estimates committee, meaning that perhaps a corner will not be cut. I think that is good for government and good for the accountability process. There are benefits, not only to oppositions but also to governments.

What we have now is the government using its majority in this chamber to literally run wild and change these accountability mechanisms as best it can. The government has been very embarrassed by these changes to the Senate committee system; Senator Minchin, who can be quite a smart political operator at times, realised this, so he pulled stumps, decided to get the best possible system—that is, eight committees and not the 10 he originally proposed—and called it quits. These changes are unnecessary; they should not have occurred. They represent nothing else but an unnecessary power grab by a power-hungry and manipulative government. (Time expired)

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After that rather unfortunate and disappointing display of bile and vitriol from Senator Faulkner, could I just say, on a positive note, that I am pleased that these changes were referred to the Procedure Committee, the report of which we are now considering. I appreciate the cooperation of non-government parties in the operation of the Procedure Committee and the deliberations that occurred. I appreciate the fact that at the meeting, which was in fact the first meeting of the Procedure Committee that I had ever attended, it was agreed at the outset that, while the opposition parties could not—and I accept this—agree with the direction of the government’s proposals, they wished to discuss positively the best way to implement the arrangements. On that basis, I think it was a very constructive operation.

This is a very good report. Indeed, we were persuaded by the opposition parties that, as the committee recommends, the proposal to have eight committees with eight members was the most sensible way to proceed. I want to thank all members of that committee. I want to thank the members of the Senate staff who supported that committee in their work in ensuring that the report was produced. It is a very helpful, productive and good report. I commend it to the Senate and I trust that its recommendations will be supported by all.

I turn to the substance of the proposed changes, and I will get to Senator Faulkner’s rather unfortunate remarks in due course. There has been a significant amount of hysteria generated about what the government is proposing, and I would like to respond to some of the criticisms and hysteria. Firstly, I make the point that, contrary to speculation by some, these proposed changes did not originate in the Prime Minister’s office. They originated in the backbench of the coalition. The coalition members brought to the attention of the coalition Senate party room the proposals that you see before you, which did ultimately receive the support and endorsement of the Prime Minister. The initiative came very much from our backbenchers.

They were motivated I think by the regrettable abuse of the current arrangements that has occurred. I came into this place just at the time that the current arrangements were put in place. At the time, as a lowly coalition opposition backbencher, I could not quite understand their motivation or their purpose. I think the proper explanation for the current arrangements was that at that time you had a governing party in the Senate with probably the lowest number of senators any governing party has ever had—only 30 of the 76 senators, I think—yet it chaired all the committees. There was a majority of the Senate not particularly happy with that arrangement.

For our part, we have always said that the government should chair the main committees of the Senate, the portfolio committees. But an arrangement was agreed to that reflected the plurality the coalition then had in the Senate—that is, it had 36 senators compared to the ALP’s 30—and that created the duplicate committees, the references committees. I always found that system rather odd, but it could work if there were genuine regard for it. But the fact is that since 1996, on 46 separate occasions prior to the coalition majority being achieved, legislation has been referred by this Senate to references committees—a complete corruption of the current system. The current system can only operate if everybody is prepared to accept the difference and the separation between a legislation committee and a reference committee. But, once this Senate began to corrupt and abuse that arrangement by referring bills quite deliberately to references committees with a complete disregard for the Senate’s original decision to split these committees between legislation and references, the whole house of cards crumbled. What you see before you is very much a consequence of that corruption and abuse of the current arrangements by the Senate over the last 10 years in sending bills to references committees—obviously, for purposes that we all know.

The other very odd thing about the hysteria surrounding these very moderate and sensible proposals is that they return the Senate committee system to exactly the system that prevailed for the whole of the 13 years of the Hawke and Keating governments. So, for all the fire and brimstone that we hear from the Labor Party about how dreadful these changes are, they are a return in effect to exactly the arrangements we had for the 13 years when Labor was in office. In itself that totally exposes as a farce the arguments that we have heard from the Labor Party.

In that vein I want to reject out of hand the other straw man that has been erected, that somehow this is a reflection of what is described as the coalition’s ‘abuse’ of its Senate majority. It is said that we control the Senate. May I say quite openly and honestly that I think the events of today are evidence in themselves that the coalition does not control the Senate. That is a function of the very proud tradition of the Liberal and National parties of according to all members and senators the ultimate right to express their views openly on the floor of the parliament and without fear of retribution. So it is that Liberals and Nationals are able on occasion to cross the floor and vote against their party if they believe the circumstances warrant it. It is rare but it is something that the Liberal and National parties have always had as part of their tradition and one that is defended by us. It is quite unlike the Labor Party, where anyone who dares to do such a thing is subject to expulsion from the party. So by definition the government does not control the Senate.

Indeed, the coalition parties are the great defenders of the Senate. It has been part of our political philosophy for all of our existence, for the history of the Federation, to support the upper house, to support the Senate and to support the house of review. Since the coalition gained a technical majority in this place on 1 July last year, I think we have acted with due caution, responsibility and moderation. We have retained the tradition that an opposition party member occupies the position of Deputy President. If we had wanted to we could have used our numbers to end that tradition. I think that it is admirable that we resisted any temptation to do so. May I say, it was made easier by the fact that the Labor Party has put up one of its best senators for the position, and I commend Senator Hogg for the job that he does as Deputy President. But the fact is that if we were into abuse of our majority we could have easily ended that arrangement. We have respected question time throughout with equal numbers of questions—indeed, on balance, more questions for non-government parties, although we are in a majority in this place.

We have respected the proper place and role of estimates committees. I agree with Senator Faulkner: I think that the estimates system is a good process for governance, obviously for oppositions, but it is also good for public servants and ministers to know that they must run the gauntlet of estimates committees—and we have retained them in full. We have also retained the practice of referring legislation to committees.

It is my profound belief that with these changes you will see many more references going to committees as well. It is by definition the case that, with references committees controlled by minority parties in the Senate, the majority parties in the Senate are going to be less inclined to send references to committees, knowing that they will be political witch-hunts and that there will be abuse of the reference. I think you will find much more legitimate, objective consideration of significant national issues by Senate committees as a result of the changes we propose to make, as outlined in the committee report.

I want to refer to the unfortunate remarks made by Senator Faulkner and, at the outset, reject the outrageous abuse that he directed at Senator Eggleston. It was quite uncalled for, and I thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President, for correcting him. Senator Faulkner talked about history. I am very happy to take him up on that, because we on this side know all too well that it is the history of the Labor Party to have opposed the very existence of the Senate. For 60 years of the Labor Party’s existence, it has been part of its platform and constitution that the Senate should not exist. It has been totally opposed to it and has campaigned on that basis for most of its existence.

Two Labor Premiers at the moment are totally opposed to the equivalent of the Senate, the upper house, in their states. The Premier of my state, South Australia, is openly campaigning for the abolition of the Legislative Council in South Australia. Labor has never liked upper houses, and we have a modern-day Labor Premier campaigning openly to remove my state’s upper house. It was the Labor Party that got rid of the upper house in the state of Queensland, the only state not to have an upper house. It was removed by the Labor Party, which stacked that upper house with people who were prepared to vote to abolish it, and Mr Beattie, the current Labor Premier, dismisses with scant disregard anybody who suggests that Queensland should have an upper house. I believe that Queensland would be a much better state—a more accountable and more democratic state—if it had an upper house, and I long to see that day. The behaviour of Mr Rann and Mr Beattie exposes the underlying antipathy of the Labor Party to upper houses, and it is completely unacceptable for our side to be lectured about the Senate by the likes of Senator Faulkner. As a historian of the Labor Party, he knows better than most the long-held tradition in the Labor Party of opposing upper houses.

Senator Faulkner also regrettably descended into personal abuse of coalition senators by describing as venality and greed the motivation for our original proposal that there be 10 of these portfolio committees. I am sorry he made those remarks. They are quite untrue and unfair and an unacceptable reflection on members of the coalition. Indeed, one of the motivations for us originally recommending 10 was that we anticipated that the likes of Senator Faulkner would mount their criticism of these proposals on the basis that there are currently 16 committees and that, if we were to propose that there be only eight, they would say that this is a disaster and dreadful and that we are cutting the number of committees in half. There are really only eight committees, but there are two subsets of those eight committees. That is the current system, but it can be said that there are 16. In the face of what we anticipated would be violent attacks on cutting the number of committees in half, we thought that perhaps there is an argument for having 10 portfolio committees to mitigate the degree of criticism of the apparent reduction in the number of committees. We also thought that it was not unreasonable to suggest, in deference to those who uphold the virtues of Senate committees, that this would provide for an additional two Senate estimates committees and that that might be welcomed by those in the opposition. We were not to know that we would be roundly attacked in the way that we have been by Senator Faulkner for proposing that there be 10, not eight, of these committees. It just shows that with Senator Faulkner you can never win.

Senator Faulkner is also wrong to suggest that we had not given thought to the portfolio responsibilities of these two extra committees. Indeed, we discussed in the Procedure Committee, I recollect, the possibility of one of the subjects of employment and environment being given to these two committees so that those very important issues can be given more detailed consideration than is currently possible. We also gave consideration to the physical issues surrounding having two extra estimates committees, and we are satisfied that there may be some difficulties but that they can be overcome. Poor old Senator Faulkner was reduced to spending much of his speech simply reading out Ms Hilary Penfold’s letter. I mean no criticism of her. It is her proper responsibility to outline the difficulties, but I have no doubt that if we were to proceed with 10 committees those difficulties could easily be overcome with the proper application of the requisite resources. Nevertheless, we acknowledge that the Labor Party in particular mounted a constructive argument as to why eight committees would be more functional. We have accepted that recommendation in good spirit and in order to properly achieve consensus around the way in which this new system should operate, conceding of course that the non-government parties would prefer to keep the current arrangements.

I think Senator Faulkner is the one who should look back on his history with embarrassment and shame because of the Labor Party’s antipathy to upper houses and not abuse people like Senator Eggleston. I think the changes that are proposed are moderate, reasonable and sensible and will result in more functionality, efficiency and effectiveness for the portfolio committee system that operates in the Senate. I again remind the Labor Party and anyone listening that what we are proposing is essentially a return to the Senate committee system that operated for 13 years under the previous Labor government effectively and without any criticism from the Labor Party government at that time. In closing, I commend all those involved in the Senate Standing Committee on Procedure report—all members of the committee and the staff who supported it—and I look forward to the adoption of the report by the Senate.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to say how disappointed I am that these changes are being proposed and will be forced through by a government with a majority. I say that because of my previous parliamentary experience in Tasmania, where we worked very hard to establish a committee system that was effective. We worked with the Reform of Parliament Committee between 1992 and 1996, when there was a majority Liberal government in Tasmania, to look at the way the parliament operated. The motivation for it was that the Liberal majority wanted to increase the pay of politicians by 40 per cent in one go. However, they had to have some justification for this incredible increase in remuneration and so they came up with the idea of a Reform of Parliament Committee. I served on that committee for those four years and it was incredibly important because it led to recommendations that took the Tasmanian parliament from the last century, that is, the 19th century, into the 20th—certainly not into the 21st but into the 20th.

The reform committee recommended that we have estimates committees in Tasmania. Up until that time there were no estimates committees in the parliament. It recommended pre-legislation committees of the type the Senate knows as legislation committees. It recommended that the Parliamentary Library employ researchers. This was a wild idea, opposed by the Legislative Council in Tasmania, who felt sure that too much information would undermine the prejudiced positions they had held for many years. They could not see the point of researchers and did not need them. Anyway, we proceeded with researchers in the library. We proceeded with the notion that question time could be televised on some occasions, providing the bald spots of some members were not shown—we got down to that level of detail. The point is that there was great excitement about at last having estimates committees and pre-legislation committees that would involve the community in being able to improve legislation before it came before the House of Assembly in Tasmania and start getting an active, participatory democracy. We succeeded in getting those changes.

But then, tragically, when it became apparent that the Greens would maintain the balance of power in Tasmania, both the Liberal government and the Labor opposition got together to reduce the numbers in the Tasmanian parliament in both houses and in so doing they destroyed the whole thing. The estimates committees still operate in Tasmania; the pre-legislation committees went west. It is a case of every player wins a prize in Tasmania now. With 25 members in the House of Assembly—for a critical mass in a parliament—by the time you get a ministry and a speaker you do not have very many people left on the backbench to serve on committees. So the whole thing was lost. What we see in Tasmania is a return to majority governments, rubber-stamping and all that characterised the poor governance of the preceding period.

When I came here to the Senate, having worked previously with Senator Brown in his office in Hobart and then having observed the Senate, I saw that the Senate committee system was at least an opportunity where the non-government parties could seriously engage in review. This house, having originally been a states house, has transformed itself over the years and is no longer a states house but is being seriously seen as a house of review—a check on the government of the day.

I was very interested listening to Senator Minchin because I was waiting to hear the motivation. The fact that the government can do it is obvious, because it has the numbers. The question is: why would you do it? Why would you change the committee system? So far the only explanation for the number 10—pick a number between eight and 16—is, as Senator Minchin told us a moment ago, nothing other than, in order to anticipate the Labor opposition’s attack that eight would be half, the government said 10. We are seeing the way that governance is carried out in Australia; it is based on anticipating a number between eight and 16 that the Labor Party might pick. So it was 10. The other two committees? No idea. As Senator Faulkner said earlier in this house, there is no idea at all what they might do, except it is more of every player wins a prize because allocating the chairs of all the committees to government members increases the loyalty of government backbenchers to the leader of the day, who appoints the chairs of those committees and the perks that go with the position of chair. It is also guaranteeing, of course, that the reports of those committees are sympathetic to the government of the day. I can anticipate that government members might say: ‘No, look at the current reference of the committee looking into the immigration bill. They came up with the wrong answer and yet they had a government chair.’ Yes, and look at the preselection processes around that particular chair. Look at the preselection in Western Australia, with a member of the House of Representatives, Judi Moylan. Let us have a look at those preselection processes.

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Heffernan interjecting—

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted that Senator Heffernan has entered the chamber and I am happy to debate those issues. Let us not pretend that allocating all the chairs of these committees to government members is not about taking away effective review of legislation. That is precisely what we are going to see under this new system.

We had Senator Minchin talking about the proud tradition of the Liberal Party, and yet we have seen the proud tradition engaged in bullying and abuse—no doubt, we will cop some of that shortly. A bit of abuse does not go astray in these processes, either. What we are seeing here is part of the hubris of the government. The government has the numbers; it can take control of the committees, it is going to take control of the committees and it is going to undermine the democratic process in this house of review.

We have also heard from Senator Minchin where this came from. It came from the backbench of the coalition, supposedly because too many references were being made to references committees instead of legislation committees. The reason given for that was that the references committees were chaired by non-government members and could effectively mount an investigation. Earlier this evening, Senator Minchin said that that was precisely the motivation for taking over the chairs of these committees. We were told that we are going to see effective and efficient operation of the Senate, but we are not. We are going to see what we have been experiencing in the last 12 months: you can no longer get what you need in order to scrutinise government. There are no more returns to order. We are not going to get the kind of scrutiny that we have seen in some of the Senate committees during the 10 years of the Howard government. What we are going to get is an Australian community that is more and more sceptical about the Howard government exercising total control over both houses.

Earlier this evening Senator Minchin said that the fact that it has not got total control is demonstrated by the behaviour of the backbench in relation to the proposed immigration legislation, and that the fact that the Prime Minister has lost control of his backbench demonstrates that there is not this capacity to overwhelm any legislation or decisions in the Senate. But the Australian community ought not to have to rely on the courage of a few backbenchers in order to get appropriate review and scrutiny of legislation. The Australian community is entitled to have qualified, talented and interested senators taking the chairs of these committees, regardless of whether they come from the government or the opposition benches. I think it is entirely appropriate that some non-government senators chair some of these committees. With the government not only having the chair but also having the majority of members on these committees, we are going to see people giving up on the Senate committee system. That in itself will be very sad.

I will be interested to see just how enthusiastic some of the government backbenchers are about coming along to maintain a quorum in these committees as they are going to operate under the changed rules, because I think it is going to be quite interesting to see whether there is that level of commitment now that the two additional chairs have been taken away from the backbenchers who thought that they might get those rewards of office.

The other thing that is of concern is the fact that the committee may appoint a subcommittee consisting of three or more of its members and refer to any such subcommittee any other matters which the committee is empowered to consider. What is to stop a government dominated, government chaired committee setting up a subcommittee of its own members? That will be an interesting phenomenon, and we will see even less scrutiny than we already have.

I have seen what happens when governments decide to manipulate longstanding parliamentary processes to their own advantage. Ultimately it comes back to bite them. Ultimately that occurs, and it will occur in the Tasmanian parliament given enough time. But in the meantime the people of Tasmania have been seriously short-changed by the reduction in the numbers that has taken away serious democratic representation in that state. Just as the people of Tasmania are now acknowledging that, the height of hypocrisy I have to comment on here is that of the member for Denison, Michael Hodgman. He was the one who threatened Tony Rundle—the then Premier—with crossing the floor unless Tony Rundle supported the Labor Party’s motion to reduce the numbers. The reason for that was that Bob Cheek, who was also a Liberal member for Denison—as you would well know, Mr Acting Deputy President Barnett—had already said he was going to cross the floor. The member for Denison, Michael Hodgman, was terrified that he would lose out in the deal. They both threatened Tony Rundle with crossing the floor, which was the motivation for Tony Rundle to embrace the cut in the numbers in a way that would disadvantage the Greens, who in this case were the minor party.

Now the member for Denison, Michael Hodgman, makes speech after speech everywhere saying, ‘Oh dear; democracy in Tasmania has been undermined by these changes.’ He now realises it was a mistake, because the Liberal Party are going to be in opposition forever at this rate because of what they did to themselves. Now he wants it changed again, without acknowledging any of his own responsibility in having forced the absolute gutting of the Tasmanian parliament. He stands condemned for his role in it. At the time I said to the then Premier of Tasmania, Tony Rundle, that he might think he was doing in the Greens, but he was destroying the Liberal Party forever because the Liberal Party could never be in government in Tasmania if they got rid of the Greens, because the only thing that kept Labor from having a majority in Tasmania was Green representation in the parliament. But they would not have a bar of it, and one only has to look at the consequent years to see that that was the case.

That is why I am standing here today saying that governments who get majorities and decide to undermine democratic institutions and democratic processes, change the system to their own advantage, remove the possibility of opposition members chairing committees and remove genuine scrutiny have the boomerang come back and hit them in the head. The Australian people deserve a house of review. A house of review means appropriate scrutiny of legislation and appropriate scrutiny of governments. You achieve that through estimates committees, through Senate references committees and through Senate legislation committees. You achieve it through returns to order. You achieve it through getting references up.

Only a few months ago I moved in this Senate for a reference to look at all of the energy options for Australia because of growing greenhouse gas emissions and increasing oil prices. The government was having an investigation into uranium. I moved for the whole range of energy options to be considered, and it was defeated. It was defeated on the numbers. Nothing will be referred unless the government decides that it wants a reference to proceed, and that is not the best interests of good governance in this country.

However, the hubris that has set in with the government will mean that at next year’s federal election the Senate will become the focus of the election, which it has not been for many years. Control of the Senate will become a major election issue. Rescuing the Senate from the autocratic way in which the government is treating it will be something on the minds of the Australian people. They will realise that today there was a lucky escape for this country where the Howard government tried to excise the whole mainland of Australia, when the Prime Minister said only a couple of years ago that it was a complete nonsense to suggest that he would ever try something like that. It was an attack on the sovereignty of Australia. It was kowtowing to Indonesia. It was pathetic.

The Australian people are going to say to themselves, ‘We do not want this government to control both houses.’ There will be a backlash and there will be a balance of power in the Senate after next year’s federal election. We will change it back again to give appropriate scrutiny to government legislation—appropriate scrutiny that is afforded by the committee system—and we will return to having non-government chairs on some of the committees, as ought to be the case.

Talented people in this Senate deserve the opportunity to represent their country in the best way that they can. The denial of that is to the benefit of the backbench of the governing party, in this case the coalition, whose hands were out for two extra Senate chairs for no better reasoning than: ‘Pick a number between eight and 16. Ten’s good; it’ll give us two extra chairs. Pay off two extra backbenchers to effectively chair those committees.’ What sort of reasoning is that for taking away the scrutiny that ought to be here with this house of review?

I want to conclude by reinforcing that the opposition parties in no way wanted their participation in the committee looking at these changes to be taken as support for the restructuring of the committee system, which they strongly disagreed with in principle. It is absolutely clear that this is simply a grab for power which is going to backfire on the government and make rescuing the Senate the priority in next year’s federal election.

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak this evening on the Procedure Committee report on the restructure of the Senate committee system. As we know, at the last election the government was able to win a majority in the Senate in its own right effective from 1 July last year. The government, in the months leading up to their assumption of control, went to great lengths to talk down their plans for the Senate—surprisingly!—and to try and assure Australians that they had only honourable intentions. The Prime Minister, Mr John Howard, told the Australian people, to quote from him on a doorstop from 28 October 2004:

... I want to assure the Australian people that the government will use its majority in the new Senate very carefully, very wisely and not provocatively.

We intend to do the things we’ve promised the Australian people we would do, but we don’t intend to allow this unexpected but welcome majority in the Senate to go to our heads.

And he said:

We certainly won’t be abusing our newfound position. We will continue to listen to the people and we’ll continue to stay in touch with the public that has invested great trust and confidence in us.

We had Mr John Howard running around the country telling anyone who would listen that they had no plans at all to abuse their power in the Senate, that they would not let the temptation go to their heads.

But before long—not very long at all—the temptation became too much to resist. Since 1 July last year, contrary to Senator Ellison’s claim, we have actually seen a massive increase in the government’s share of allocated questions during question time. Senator Ellison, vainly, I put it, but magnificently, tried to argue that, of the 1,000 questions asked since 1 July 2005, 800 were from non-government senators. Of course, Senator Ellison was being a tad—perhaps we could use this word—devious, or not giving us the whole picture, since he was double-counting by including supplementary questions. We all know that the government do not attach supplementary questions to their dorothy dixers. The more interesting statistic is this: of the 350 allocated questions asked during this parliament before 1 July 2005, just 25 per cent were dorothy dixers from the government backbench. Since 1 July, of the 623 questions asked, 39 per cent were dorothy dixers from the government backbench. If that is not a reduction in the Senate’s ability to hold the government to account then I do not know what is.

Secondly, there has been a 400 per cent increase in the rejection of inquiries proposed for references committees. These have leapt from three to 15 and, in many cases, they have been rejected without any justification given. Thirdly, the length of committee inquiries has been slashed. From the beginning of 2004 up to 30 June last year inquiries had an average length of 39 days. Since the government assumed control of the Senate that number has crashed to 27.5, so we have had nearly a full two weeks shaved off the average length of an inquiry. Amazingly, though, this figure would have been even lower if the government had had its way. If you cast your mind back to the end of last year you had the government proposing a miserable one-day inquiry into the Anti-Terrorism Bill (No. 2). I will add that the government is now coming back to parliament to amend that legislation which it rammed through parliament, to amend it even before it becomes law.

Fourthly, debate on legislation has been continuously guillotined or gagged in this chamber. The Senate was guillotined last year when debating the workplace reforms—legislation which has been shown to be the most drastic and wide-ranging change to Australian workplaces and home life in decades. On the other hand, when it comes to Australia’s migration laws, the government is more than happy to hear from Indonesia. It will listen to the Indonesian government but not to the elected representatives of the Australian people. Just this morning the government pulled its controversial Migration Amendment (Designated Unauthorised Arrivals) Bill 2006 with less than a minute’s notice. In fact, it pulled it while the bells were ringing. The inability of the government to control its own ranks is not a legitimate reason for showing the Senate such flagrant disregard.

I could go on with other abuses. I have certainly catalogued many of them. Other abuses include the unilateral decision of the government to refuse to allow public servants to speak about the Australian Wheat Board in estimates and spillover days being cut from estimates schedules—days which in the past would have been used to explore issues such as the Cornelia Rau matter, which the immigration minister should be ashamed of, and the Vivian Alvarez matter. There are many other matters that spillover days would have been used as an opportunity to explore and to hold this government to account on.

We now arrive at the latest chapter in the Howard government’s ongoing sabotage of the Senate: the restructure of the Senate committee system. But it is not a restructure; it is a sabotage of the Senate committee system. This system will ensure that we really do have a different outcome. We first heard about this restructure through a letter from Senator Minchin on behalf of the government on 20 June this year. The key elements of the restructure were the collapsing of the reference and legislation committees into a single committee for each portfolio area, the assigning of all committee chairs to government senators and the creation of two new portfolio areas as part of a wide streamlining of the portfolio areas. These were the matters that were proffered. The changes were, according to Senator Minchin at the time, designed to achieve greater efficiencies and effectiveness, and rebalance the existing disparate committee workloads. That was the thin veil that was flicked up.

The proposals were then debated in the Senate in a motion referring the matter to the Procedure Committee for inquiry. The key arguments made by the government at that time included: that the changes would lead to greater efficiency and accountability, apparently through increasing the number of estimates committees available—although never mind that the government has consistently acted to curtail the power of the estimates committees this year anyway; that the proposals were returning us to the previous systems of committees which ran up until about 12 years ago; and, lastly, that the rearrangement of committees would rebalance the workload between the existing ones. Those were the arguments that were proffered at the time. To put it bluntly, I do not believe that these were the government’s true motives. At best they were a convenient smokescreen, a post facto justification for a proposal that had quite a different intent and purpose.

Perhaps I could explore the true motives for the sake of the government. To begin with we only need to look at the final outcome to see what the government’s true priorities were. Of the government’s proposals the only parts to stay standing are the abolition of references committees and that all remaining committees are to be chaired by government senators. The proposal streamlining the portfolio areas has been scrapped in this latest version. We can see now that this was only ever included so that the government senators could stand up in this chamber in June and defend the overall package. Without it they had very little to hide behind. There was no intention to keep it. It was part of a convenient smokescreen. By suggesting two additional portfolio areas the government was able to say that there would be a 25 per cent increase in estimates hearings. Of course, anyone who has ever participated in or observed closely the estimates process will know this is complete baloney. It would have left individual senators stretched between five concurrent sets of hearings, forcing them to forgo questions if there was a clash between agencies or to put them on notice and suffer the government saying: ‘You have put too many questions on notice. You were not there at the committee,’ and all of the other issues the government would raise to complain about. At the same time it would mean that the people who are interested—observers, media and people who have a general interest in understanding some of the content—would also be stretched while they tried to keep an eye on that many sets of different hearings. I suspect the government was simply trying to achieve less, rather than more, scrutiny.

But regarding spillover days, Labor saw through that government furphy. Why didn’t they just leave the spillover days in place? The government could easily have left those in place to deal with the Senate estimates process. Bringing them back would lead to a potential 25 per cent increase in scrutiny, if that is what the government wanted or was serious about enjoying—but no. So I say to the government: ‘Show us that you’re genuinely interested. This is part of your overall ability to bring efficiency and effectiveness into the chamber. Give back all the Senate estimates spillover days. With the spillovers back you will genuinely get an increase in scrutiny. You will genuinely have a situation where cases like those of Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez, to give examples, are brought to light.’ But of course we know that the government will not do this because we know that the commitment to scrutiny is not real; it is illusory.

The government does not want cases like those of Cornelia Rau and Vivian Alvarez to come to light. It does not want the committee system looking into matters of the day such as the Australian Wheat Board scandal. No, you did not want anyone to look into that mess. It wants a committee system that holds one-day inquiries on important, complex legislation. Why? So that the legislation does not get the scrutiny that it should. You want the government position to be rubber-stamped with no genuine oversight and no scrutiny at all.

I turn to another issue, and that is the government’s argument about disparate workloads of the committees. But when you look at the proposal there is no substance whatsoever in that claim. If the government really believed or cared about the workload of the committees, they would have pressed ahead with the restructure of the portfolio areas. But they have not. The committees have been collapsed from 16 legislation and references committees to eight amalgamated ones, but the portfolio areas have not been touched. The reality is that this disparity will always evolve as the government’s legislative priorities change. It would seem to be common sense to this side of the chamber but it apparently escapes the members of the government for them to argue that. Of course workloads will change depending on the legislative priorities of the particular government and the bills they bring forward. That stands to reason.

In addition, one should not be surprised if an increased number of references are being sought, given this government’s poor record on allowing itself to be held to account. There are many areas where references committees will serve a useful purpose in exploring this government’s mismanagement and bungles. The disparity that occurs is not unusual. Priorities do change over time. As for disparities between legislation and references committees, these merely reflect the different purposes of the committees and, as I said earlier, the fact that the government has used its majority to block references. The number of rejected references has skyrocketed from three to 15 in the time that the government has had control of the Senate. If there is a disparity between the workloads of the legislation and references committees then the government might want to rectify this by approving some of the references. Of course, any efficiency benefits that might have come from consolidating the two committees have already been realised, given that each pair of committees already has a shared secretariat. The only potential gain left perhaps might come from cheaper letterhead or stationery, but I doubt that it would be significant.

Let us go back for a brief moment to the situation prior to 1994. The only argument the government has raised in support of this proposal that might be able to be argued, although I think it is still far from justifiable, is that the proposed changes to the committee system take us back to the situation we had prior to 1994. Senator Ellison described this as part of the evolving processes of the committee system. All I can say is that going back in time looks more like devolution than evolution to me. In any case, if you have a look at what coalition senators had to say about those changes at the time, it becomes patently obvious that it was all about reducing accountability, not increasing it.

Looking at some of the Liberals’ arguments in 1994, firstly, we have Senator Hill, as Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, arguing that:

... there is no reason why more than half the Senate should be excluded from having the responsibility of chairing, and the opportunity to chair, these committees.

Yet the changes that his party is now proposing will achieve almost exactly that, with 37 of 76 senators now barred from chairing a committee. At the time, the Liberal Party’s argument was based on the fact that the Labor government itself did not have a majority and therefore should not have all the chairs—it is an interesting argument that was put. It is a shame that now those opposite have tried to spin that the other way. I refer to former Senator Teague from South Australia, who provided the following comments on the same debate:

What we are moving to now is the kind of maturity which Australia is ready for, whereby the control of the Senate committee system is by the Senate itself, but where the chairmanship of particular committees is in the hands of senators in a manner which is directly proportional to the composition of the Senate as elected by the Australian people. ... That is one of the major steps forward in sophistication and maturity ...

So why these steps backwards? Why this reduction in maturity and sophistication? We come from a crass government. Senator Ferguson told us last week that 12 years ago he was not outspoken because he really did not know enough about the committee system at the time. One thing he did say was that he was in favour of the whole idea of having references committees separate from other committees. I ask Senator Ferguson: why, if he thought it was a good idea when he was in opposition, is it no longer a good idea now, or has the government’s view now changed?

Turning to the real motives: every person sitting in this chamber knows that the reason the government is foisting this restructure of the committee system onto the Senate has nothing to do with disparate workloads and nothing to do with improving the accountability and oversight of the Senate. It has everything to do with entrenching the dominance of this government in every way possible in every part to ensure that there is no scrutiny, no ability for this Senate to hold this government to account and no genuine check on the government’s powers and legislation. That is what this government is trying to achieve. It will not achieve that. History demonstrates that where there is a will there is a way to hold this government to account. Be it in this chamber or outside this chamber, it will still happen. It is both an illusory change and a useless change and it is one that does not reflect well on government at all. It does not reflect well on government to try to curtail the ability of this Senate to hold this government to account through the committee system. What this proposal will do ultimately is force it out elsewhere, because these matters will come to light.

There will be a need for the government to be held to account for matters that come up. We do not know what those matters could be. They could pop out from any direction, from any portfolio area, from any quarter. But they do fall out of government every now and then. The committee system is ably served to be able to look at such matters and throw light on them. And sometimes, although you may not like it, if you reflect upon it as a government it is helpful to have matters of mismanagement, even incompetence, pointed out because it gives you an ability to change things.

What you are now enforcing upon yourselves is the ability not to change and not to remedy deficiencies or bungles but, rather, to ignore them, to sweep them under the carpet. That is what you are now enforcing upon yourselves. It is not good governance. You know it, but you cannot help yourselves because you think you have the numbers today. It was also demonstrated today that you do not always have the numbers. So it is also poor foresight.

These retrograde reforms are ultimately short-sighted and they are not in the long-term interests of this country or any government. Indeed, the governance of this country will be the poorer for it, as maladministration and mismanagement will take longer to be exposed and addressed. It is not too late for these changes to be stopped. Backbenchers have already demonstrated a willingness not to support the government’s mad ideas. There is the ability for this not to be passed. Probably, though, the die has already been cast. But, after abolishing reference committees, this government will deny itself the important measure—(Time expired)

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have been in this place for a year. During that time I think it is fairly safe to say that I have been fairly active in the committee process. It may sound a bit strange, but it is some of work that I have enjoyed the most. It is parliament at its best. In most of the committees that I have been on there has been more of a sense of collaboration and congeniality, less of a sense of confrontation. It has been dialogue rather than diatribe.

I may have misheard what Senator Minchin just said about Senator Faulkner making an unacceptable reflection on the coalition. I think I heard him make an unacceptable reflection on the minor parties by saying that one of the good outcomes of the changes concerns the public not taking committees’ involvement with minor parties very seriously, and that we may be attempting to use the committee system. I take that quite a bit to heart. At the moment I am chairing an inquiry into Australia’s future oil supplies. Let me tell you that the community is taking that committee very seriously. We have had over 200 high-quality submissions and a large number of days of public hearings. We have collected a vast amount of information that, if not for this committee, would not be on the public record and would not now be available to members of this chamber and this place and to the broader community.

I suppose I could reflect that the government does not like being confronted with information like this. It is quite confronting for the government that they have been asleep at the wheel on this issue. So it does not surprise me that they may try to get further control of the committees, where they can restrict some of the process and some of the information gathering that goes on.

I would like to take a short time to look at some of the achievements in committees that I have seen in my short time in this place. I will start with the inquiry into petrol sniffing. I was very pleased to be part of a unanimous report that looked at this issue of national significance that governments have known about for some time. This is what I hope is the last ever report on petrol sniffing. It was very pleasing that the government actually responded to at least one of the findings of this report. It rolled out Opal across a broader area of Central Australia. That was one of the very recommendations that the committee made. It is very true to say, I think, that all of the senators on that committee enjoyed that committee and found it very useful, and it was a very collaborative approach. In fact, it would also be fair to say that it was probably very difficult to tell, between the coalition members, the ALP members and the minor party members, who was the strongest on this issue, we were so unanimous in our views on this topic. Look at the salinity inquiry. Again, that was a unanimous report. We canvassed the latest information and science on salinity—information that had not been collected at that stage.

I would like to go back to the oil inquiry, which was initiated by Senator Milne—or the idea was generated by Senator Milne, who is from a minor party. That was accepted in this place and sent to the Senate Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport References Committee. As I was saying, we have generated a vast amount of information. I do not think it has been collected anywhere else in this country. It highlights this extremely important issue. This is at the cutting edge. This information about rising oil prices and the potential scarcity of oil is extremely topical. It also allowed us to gain information from government agencies. ABARE is a classic example. It has actually been shown that this particular agency is in fact not serving our country well with the information that it has been providing. That might also prove to be slightly embarrassing to the government.

There are ongoing inquiries at the moment into national parks and marine protected areas and water. A number of legislative inquiries, I must say, have brought out information that the government in some cases has responded to and in other cases has not. But they actually more fully inform the community. For example, when we were looking at the Welfare to Work legislation it became very obvious that the government had not dealt with the issue of family carers. That is one issue that I have spoken about at length in this place. It is fair to say that the government has taken action on this issue. It has not taken action as fully as I would like it to, but it has taken action. I doubt this information would have come to light if it had not been for the committee inquiry process.

There was the clothing workers issue during the Work Choices inquiry. There were plenty of other issues that came up that the government did not deal with, but it did deal with that one. In the inquiry into carers’ back pay it came out that not enough information was being provided to the community to enable carers to have access to the various benefits that they can have access to. On the land rights inquiry, although the recommendation was not as strong as I thought it should be, the information in that report was provided to the community.

It is also fair to say that the government does not respond to all of the committee inquiries as it should. In fact, I spoke in this place last week on the government’s lack of support for the recommendations in the Senate Community Affairs References Committee poverty report. Again, that information is out there and is used in various forums.

By combining the committees in the way that the government have, they are reducing the number of committees but increasing the workload of all the committees. Therefore, the committees cannot possibly cover the same amount of work that two committees used to do. They cannot possibly adequately cover the work of the reference committees on broader inquiries and the work of the legislation committees. With this proposal, the government are reducing the amount of work that committees can do. How can eight committees possibly do the work that 16 used to do? There is no doubt in my mind that the work of committees will be reduced. The number of issues that they can cover and the number of reviews and inquiries that they can carry out will be reduced through this process.

Committees provide forums and avenues that encourage collaboration and a good working environment across parties, which I believe results in good outcomes for this nation. It is a very significant opportunity for senators to contribute to the good of the nation. I believe that unanimous committee reports are an example of this place working at its best. Senators take on difficult issues, very often at the cutting edge. Australia’s future oil supplies, our water resources, petrol sniffing and salinity are but a few that I have been involved with, and there are many others. The system respects that not all senators are yes-men or party hacks; some have a real desire to advance the wellbeing of our nation and our states. The system represents the needs and concerns of our constituents. It is a chance to diversify interests and learn more about areas in which we are not experts and have little knowledge. Probably one of the reasons why the government is moving to contract the committees is that cabinet and caucus increasingly dominate the views and actions of backbenchers. Committees are a way for people to work outside those processes for the good of the country.

I believe that the role of committees in terms of community consultation and developing good public policy is essential. Committees enable committee members—senators—to be more in touch with the community. They also give community members and groups an opportunity to engage in the political process. Very often people feel alienated by the political process, but when committee members get out into the community and take evidence it enables an opening up of the political process. It gives members of the community a chance to have their say and senators a chance to understand issues in much more detail. It provides an opportunity for much more detailed review, analysis and debate. It is a chance to take issues to the people in capitals, towns and remote communities. It is very important that senators get out of Canberra and their home states and look at the rest of Australia. Committees provide an opportunity to do that. Doing that provides a much better opportunity for open governance and independent review. Surely the real purpose of government is to make good laws for the benefit of the nation. Committees help facilitate that process.

Anybody in a position of power or authority faces real issues in getting good information because of what is known in America as the SNAFU principle: situation normal, all ‘fogged’ up. I understand that in America they use a term other than ‘fogged’, but I thought that I should substitute that word for the other. This principle was developed in the process of looking at research into failures of communication and command in the US military. It became apparent that you do not tell those in power things that they do not want to hear when they hold the purse strings or can make your life a misery. Therefore, I believe it is very important that we have an open process where the people in power who hold the strings and have power over us are not solely in control of the process by which they hear the information. Senate committees provide an ideal opportunity to get around the SNAFU principle.

It is also important that we are seen to have an open process and that we increase public awareness and trust of the parliament, which, I think it would be fair to say, has been eroded substantially. We need to have the ability to elicit evidence and testimony. Committee inquiries often result in recommendations or amendments that improve legislation or policy. There are a number of examples. The petrol sniffing issue is a very good example of where government policy has been improved as a result of the committee process. Legislation has also been improved. When this place sees legislation, very often it has been put together hurriedly and, in some cases, with very little attention given to unintended consequences, let alone intended consequences. The land rights legislation is a very good example of where the government has brought in a raft of amendments that deal with unintended consequences. I know that committees will still have legislation referred to them, but with their increased workload I believe they will not be able to carry out the sufficiently detailed examination of legislation that should take place. They need time to be able to scratch the surface and look into the real issues so that committee inquiries are not seen to be a whitewash—which would increase public distrust, not trust, in the parliamentary process. Committee inquiries need to be open and consultative in order to enable the community to access the process and give us their thoughts.

This place, I believe, will be a poorer place as a result of this attack on committees. In fact, we should be supporting the work of committees more broadly in order to increase the collaboration and collegial work that goes on in committees so that they are given the support that they actually need. I do not support the amalgamation of the committees. I think the government should be reconsidering this so that they are not downgrading the role of committees and are not impacting on what I believe is the democratic work of this place.

Kerry Nettle (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Democratic governments want to hear all the different voices in the community. They want to hear from people. They want to hear a diversity of views and perspectives on issues. Anyone knows that, in making a decision, hearing the views of a range of different people allows one to make a better decision. Our current committee structure allows us—allows the parliament, allows the government—to have not just government chairs but chairs from other parties that can drive a discussion in a different direction, put forward a different perspective and be used to inform and assist the government in making the very best decisions for the whole community. The path that the government wants to take us down is going to narrow the voices that we hear from and narrow those opportunities.

Other senators have spoken about the importance of getting out and hearing from a whole range of different people across the country, inviting different witnesses from different places. If we narrow the perspective of what our committees do, we will not have those same opportunities. We already see—and lots of us have seen it here—legislation being rushed through the parliament. In particular, legislation committees are given very short time frames for making decisions. There is a push to get legislation straight through without the opportunity for review and scrutiny. I can think of a number of pieces of legislation recently—terrorism, health legislation that I have been involved in—where there has been an absolute rush to get them through. If we do not have a diversity of voices being heard in those committees and in the committee process, we will not have the same capacity to ensure that full and proper decisions are made. When the government has a majority in both chambers but particularly in the Senate, it is important that the different voices are heard. The committee process, as it exists, is an opportunity for that to happen.

The current references committee process also allows us to look at government accountability—issues that the government may choose not to shine the spotlight on; the way in which the government is carrying out particular processes—including different types of scandals and transparency issues. We will not have the same capacity to do that with the new proposals. This move is designed to narrow the range of voices that are heard from, narrow the range of members of the community who the government listens to and narrow the range of those people who are able to lead and drive those discussions, and to simply knock out voices, positions and opportunities to be heard by the government of the day. The government of the day will suffer as a result, because there will not be that same diversity of people, speaking on issues, that we see in our current committee system. These changes will be to the government’s own detriment because they will limit the range of people they hear from and the opportunity for people in the community to be involved in the parliamentary process, the democratic process, such as through writing submissions to committees. That opportunity is being narrowed because of this proposal.

The Greens want a diversity of voices represented and heard as they are in our existing committee process. We do not support the changes, because we want to celebrate the different views. We recognise that governments are able to make better decisions when they hear that full diversity of views. When the government has control in the Senate, it is even more important that that diversity is represented.

Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government are proposing to combine the Senate legislation and references committees so that they chair each and every committee. That means they will control all the Senate committees and the work that committees do. Family First believes that the changes being made by the government are an abuse of power. These changes are yet another example of why no government should have control of the Senate. When a government has control of the Senate, there is the temptation to use that power and control to weaken what the Senate is supposed to do—that is, to be a house of review. There is always the temptation to try to stifle dissent and the views of your opponents. I can understand that: no-one particularly likes being criticised or having their faults shown up.

But, while the Senate is often used for political point-scoring and cheap shots, it can also be used to the great benefit of Australia. The committee system can be used to improve our understanding of important issues and find and fix flaws in legislation. When the government of the day has total control, it is easy for that control of the Senate to go to the government’s head and for that power to be abused. I think that is happening here tonight. I do not want to oversell the point but I think that a committee system which shares the power more proportionally is a better system than what is proposed here.

Family First thinks that a Senate committee system where the chair of every committee is a government senator does not reflect a reasonable sharing of power. It is ‘winner takes all’. The current system, where legislation committees are chaired by the government and reference committees by the non-government parties, seems to strike a good balance and make commonsense. So why is the government making these changes? It is clearly an attempt to use its power to stifle debate, reduce scrutiny of issues and diminish any view other than its own. All this is designed to make the government’s life a little easier. But I would suggest that weakening the role of the Senate is a false economy and that the government may come to miss the discipline of a strong and accountable Senate. I think the government needs to be challenged so it stays on its toes. Family First believes this is another step in seeing the Senate move from a house of review to a house of one view. Family First will oppose this move.

Question put:

That the motion (That the motion (Senator Ellison’s) be agreed to.) be agreed to.