Jeannie Ferris (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the 11th report of 2006 of the Selection of Bills Committee and move:

That the report be adopted.

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

I move:

At the end of the motion, add “but, in respect of the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006, the Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Committee report by the first sitting day in 2007”.

The report seeks to refer three bills to committee. The Democrats and I do not have any problem with the first two, but I do have a concern about the third. The proposal is to refer the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006 to the relevant Senate committee for inquiry and report by 17 November this year, and it has an appendix giving a statement of the reported reasons for referral. My amendment seeks to extend the reporting date to the first sitting day of 2007. For the record, I need to highlight a wider concern that I have—and this is not particularly aimed at the committee or the Government Whip; it is about a change that is occurring because of the attitude of the cabinet or a range of government ministers—that is, the very recent trend of the government to refer legislation for very short periods of time and to put in referrals before the legislation has even appeared.

Unless it has been tabled in the House of Representatives in the last few minutes—and I do not think it has—this particular legislation has not yet appeared. It is not completely unprecedented nor overly common, but it is becoming common for the government, presumably at the behest of ministers, to put in referrals to legislation that has not even appeared. In this case, and in many other cases, the Senate as a whole does not have much of an idea of what the legislation contains.

As a result of a range of phone calls in the last 24 hours I have managed to garner a very broad and vague understanding of what is in this particular legislation. I understand that it contains around 130 amendments to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. As to the significance of those amendments, of course we are not in a position to judge, because we have not seen them—trying to ascertain the nature of them has been beyond me to this stage.

To have the Senate agreeing to what in any case would be a very short reporting date for legislation that we have not seen, that we do not know the detail of, I think is very poor practice. It is not the first time this has happened, of course, in the last 12 months. On this occasion the Democrats believe it is important enough to put on the record our concerns. What we are seeing is a growing number of occasions where the government is referring legislation instantly rather than allowing the legislation to sit—in many cases, in the House of Representatives—at least for a few days to allow people to look at it before they decide whether or not it needs referring, and giving it an extremely short reporting date.

This reporting date, 17 November, is not even a sitting day; it is the end of the first non-sitting week after the next sitting fortnight. There is another full non-sitting week after this that the committee could use, which will be denied to it, as well as of course the final two sitting weeks of the year. I would think that normally in such a circumstance there would be some justification given as to why it is sufficiently urgent that what sounds like very significant amending legislation needs to be passed through the whole parliament before the end of the year. We have not had that. Frankly, there is no reason, even if it does need to be passed by the end of the year, why it could not be the first sitting day back, which would be 27 November. By putting it at 17 November, the first non-sitting week, the committee will not be in a position to do anything other than perhaps have one or two very truncated hearing days. There will be very little opportunity for the community, for environment groups and for many of the other people in the wider community affected by this to have any input into the matter. I think that is an extremely poor process, one that is becoming very common. It is very much a departure from the way the normal Selection of Bills Committee process has operated for as long as I have been following it—which, I have to say, is now not only the nine years I have been in this place but about seven years prior to that. (Time expired)

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The opposition will be supporting this amendment. As I understand the situation, we have a Selection of Bills Committee report where the government has proposed the reference of a bill to a committee, with essentially a two-week period of notice, to consider a bill that this chamber has not seen. I asked the clerks: ‘Where is the bill?’ They indicated to me that it has not been introduced to the Senate. I asked: ‘Perhaps it is in the House of Representatives?’ They indicated to me that, no, it has not been introduced into the House of Representatives. Then I asked what I thought was a perfectly reasonable question: ‘Well, can I have a copy of the bill?’ And I am told that a bill is not available! It’s not available!

Jeannie Ferris (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Stop shouting.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You ought to shout about this. This is the sort of thing that highlights the incredible arrogance of this government: a piece of legislation, which we have not seen, which we understand may involve 130 amendments, is being referred to a committee. And it is not just any piece of legislation; it is one of the most sensitive pieces of legislation in the armoury of the minister for the environment. And it is not as if it is any portfolio. It is a portfolio that has been characterised by one scandal after another by a minister who has demonstrated time and time again that he is prepared to intervene in a blatantly political manner to produce political results. He has acted quite clearly, with regard to heritage matters, in breach of the law. And now we are told we are going to have amendments to this legislation, contained in a bill that this chamber has not seen. And you ask me whether or not I should be upset about that! Every senator in this place should be very upset about that, because it demonstrates the complete contempt that this government is showing towards this parliament. It is a disgrace—a complete and total disgrace.

Why do we bother seeing any of the legislation, if this is the attitude? It has been through the cabinet, presumably—that is all we need. Perhaps we should ask the cabinet minister: ‘Have your colleagues agreed?’ That should be satisfactory, surely. Is that the standard you expect? It is not the standard that the opposition expects. We saw this minister with the fiasco around the parrots—where, in Bald Hills in Victoria, he sought to set that extraordinarily dangerous precedent of arbitrarily politically interfering in a major development and infrastructure process. He has sought to use his powers under this legislation to act in such an arbitrary way, and you want us to agree to amendments that we have not seen. You want to refer it to a committee, saying, ‘You should be able to wrap this up within a fortnight.’ Why bother?

Jeannie Ferris (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It’s five weeks.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is a fortnight where there are no sittings. The parliament is sitting throughout the rest of that period. You say, ‘Oh, we’ll bring it back in a month.’ The parliament is sitting throughout that period. I do not know what you do, but with something like this I think you should be consulting the Australian people. That is what Senate committees used to do: they used to actually talk to people. Surely, there should be an opportunity to ask people what they think of these proposals. But, under this measure, no-one has seen the bill—how would they know? I could ask you: how do you know? You have not seen it either. I bet that is the case. Senator Ferris, answer me this: have you seen this bill that you are proposing we refer to a Senate committee to report back within the month? Is that the case or not? I put it to you that you have not seen it and you are expecting us to agree to it. We are not as dopey as the government is on these matters. This is a shocking proposal. It is something that this Senate should reject. This opposition ought to be maintained right throughout this parliament. It is not the sort of behaviour that we should accept or tolerate.

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

The behaviour of the government is outrageous in this matter. It is an affront not just to both houses of parliament and particularly the Senate in this regard but to 20 million Australians. This is a simple case of the government preparing legislation to comprehensively weaken and remove teeth from the nation’s Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. The Greens opposed that back in 2000 when the legislation came through because we felt it was far too weak. But here is the government tugging its forelock to the resource extraction industries, not least the coal industry in this country, which do not want to have any environmental assessment, any protection of this nation’s most magnificent natural and cultural sites put in the way of them making money.

It involves centrally the failed Minister for the Environment and Heritage, who would be better under the title of minister against the environment, who ought to be seeing that this weak legislation which Australia has in place is strengthened, not emasculated. But he, of course, is not in control of his portfolio. I listened to him in question time again today and yesterday in answer to Senator Siewert’s request for information, basically, as to whether he was going to stand up for the world’s great rock art site in the Burrup Peninsula. There is no alternative for that rock art if it is to be bulldozed, but there are good alternatives for Woodside if it is going to bring gas ashore. What we heard was the minister cavilling, demurring, quivering, backing down, and saying anything but that he will protect the environment.

We could have an honest delivery of legislation to the Senate, which could then pass it on to a committee inquiry with due time for the public and the environmental and cultural experts—not least the First Australians, the Aboriginal people of this great nation—to feed back to the parliament. Instead, when great heirlooms of this nation are being threatened, we have the information leaked out about this legislation to the Australian newspaper through Dennis Shanahan, political editor, who has a direct line to the Prime Minister’s office. You have the executive, which is the Prime Minister, treating both houses of this parliament with utter contempt. The control of the Senate by the Prime Minister has his vassals opposite weakly trying to defend the indefensible.

The Minister for Justice and Customs will be on his feet in a moment. One thing he will not do is to apologise for the outrageous move to give the Senate a few weeks to go to the public and the experts to look at a piece of legislation which comprehensively weakens environmental and cultural heritage protection in this country, because that is not what the big corporate backers of this government want. It might be what the Australian people want, but it is not what those corporate backers want. They are the people who will have on their logos—and the Prime Minister will be right up there with them—the use of Australia’s symbols in proclaiming their Australianness. What this legislation is about is devaluing, derogating duty towards and letting slide away more of this nation’s heritage by this corrosive and erosive process of weakening environmental laws and handing more across to the corporate domain to determine because this duplicitous and hypocritical government places profits before what makes us Australian and before what should be pride in this country.

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

I am grateful to Senator Ferris for that great term ‘constructed nonsense’, because that is just what we have heard from the opposition and the Greens in relation to this matter. What we have in the first instance is the referral of this bill amending the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act to a committee with a reporting date of 17 November.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Where is this bill?

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

It will be introduced tomorrow in the House of Representatives and then referred straightaway for consideration by a committee with a reporting date of 17 November this year. This is the plan that the government has. It is a reasonable one, and I would remind Senator Carr and those opposite that when Labor was last in government—I remember as a senator in 1993, when I came into this place—we had a Friday committee and we used to have a turnaround of just a couple of weeks to consider most bills. That committee sat on the intervening Friday when there was no parliament. That is the sort of scrutiny we had then. I think that Senator Carr ought to take a cold shower and look at the time period we have here. We have two up weeks, which are available for Senate hearings, and also a further three weeks for people to make submissions. Five weeks is not an unreasonable time at all.

Let us turn to the urgency of this bill, because this is a very important environmental bill. It implements the government’s decision to make the legislation more effective and efficient and it allows for the use of more strategic approaches and provides greater certainty in decision making. I would have thought Senator Brown would have supported that wholeheartedly. In particular, this bill is going to reduce processing time and costs for development interests and also provide enhanced ability to deal with large-scale projects and give priority attention to projects of national importance through the use of strategic assessment and approval approaches. I would have thought that the opposition would be in support of this as well. They are trying to say they are an alternative government. What is their approach to this, which makes eminent sense when you are dealing with large-scale projects?

But this bill will also enable a better focus on protecting threatened species—

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like those parrots?

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

and ecological communities and heritage places that are of real national importance.

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

Senator Bob Brown interjecting—

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

I suppose the Greens are not interested in that. They are more interested in constructed nonsense. What they are not interested in is helping to better focus on protecting threatened species, ecological communities and heritage places. That is what this bill is going to do, and that is why it is so urgent. That is why it is so important. We want this through in the spring sittings, and the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, Senator Ian Campbell, is being thoroughly responsible and diligent in seeing the passage of this legislation through. If he did not, those opposite would be the first to complain. They would be the first to say that he was being tardy and was not attending to his ministerial duties. What the minister is doing here is ensuring that a very important piece of legislation is passed, with due scrutiny by a Senate committee over five weeks, and we have had that in many instances before—in fact, it was less time in Labor’s day, when they were in government.

It is important to remember that these amendments will provide the necessary regulatory framework to provide streamlined and certain decision making under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act, and that is very important when you consider that it will provide that with more focused environmental protection and an enhanced enforcement regime. That spells good news all round for the Australian community. We are proposing a five-week period for this bill to be scrutinised, and we say that that should be—as it is for normal legislation, important legislation—more than ample time for the committee to address this bill and to address it sufficiently.

I simply dismiss as totally hypocritical Senator Carr’s mock outrage. When you look at the previous Labor government, we used to get just a Friday committee to look at most legislation. We did not get five weeks, as this is allowing. This is an important bill. Quite rightly, the minister for the environment is diligently pursuing this. He is pursuing it appropriately. It needs to be looked at and it needs to be passed by this parliament for the good interests of this country.

Question put:

That the amendment (Senator Bartlett’s) be agreed to.

Jeannie Ferris (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to have the report incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The report read as follows

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

REPORT NO. 11 OF 2006

(1)

The committee met in private session on Tuesday, 10 October 2006 at 4.18 pm.

(2)

The committee resolved to recommend—That—

(a)

the provisions of the Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Veterans’ Affairs Legislation Amendment (2006 Budget Measures) Bill 2006 be referred immediately to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee for inquiry and report by 22 November 2006 (see appendix 1 for a statement of reasons for referral);

(b)

the provisions of the Australian Participants in British Nuclear Tests (Treatment) Bill 2006 and the Australian Participants in British Nuclear Tests (Treatment) (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2006 be referred immediately to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee for inquiry and report by 7 November 2006 (see appendix 2 for a statement of reasons for referral); and

(c)

upon its introduction in the House of Representatives the provisions of the Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006 be referred to the Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Committee for inquiry and report by 17 November 2006 (see appendix 3 for a statement of reasons for referral).

(3)

The committee resolved to recommend—That the following bills not be referred to committees:

• Financial Sector Legislation Amendment (Trans-Tasman Banking Supervision) Bill 2006
• Judiciary Legislation Amendment Bill 2006
• Law and Justice Legislation Amendment (Marking of Plastic Explosives) Bill 2006
• Medical Indemnity Legislation Amendment Bill 2006
• Social Security (Helping Pensioners Hit by the Skills Shortage) Bill 2006.

The committee recommends accordingly.

(4)

The committee deferred consideration of the following bill to its next meeting:

• Migration Amendment (Border Integrity) Bill 2006.

(Jeannie Ferris)

Chair

11 October 2006

Appendix 1

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill(s):

Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs and Veterans’ Affairs Legislation Amendment (2006 Budget Measures) Bill 2006

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration

Schedule 2 of the bill proposes the introduction of significant new search and seizure powers for Centrelink.

These powers, and the circumstances under which they will be used, should be examined by the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee.

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Law and justice groups (eg law council), welfare rights organisations, civil liberties groups

Committee to which bill is referred:

Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee

Possible hearing date:

Possible reporting date(s): 29 November 2006

Appendix 2

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill(s):

Australian Participants in British Nuclear Tests (Treatment) Bill 2006 and the Australian Participants in British Nuclear Tests (Treatment) (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Bill 2006

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration

To examine the provisions of the bill.

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Friends of the Earth,

Alan Parkinson—nuclear engineer

Medical Association for the Prevention of War

Australian Nuclear Veterans Association

Australian Medical Association

Department of Veterans’ Affairs

Committee to which bill is referred:

Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee

Possible hearing date:

Possible reporting date(s): 7 November 2006

Appendix 3

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill(s):

Environment and Heritage Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2006

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration

Examination of the bill as necessary.

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Committee to which bill is referred:

Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts Committee

Possible hearing date:

Possible reporting date(s): 17 November 2006