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

I rise to seek an explanation from the Minister representing the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations as to why there are 394 questions on notice to the Department of Employment and Workplace Relation remaining unanswered from the November 2006 supplementary estimates round that were due to be answered on 15 December last year. I also ask why there are 295 questions on notice remaining unanswered from the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations from the February 2007 additional estimates round which were due in by 30 March this year.

Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What are you trying to hide?

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

It is noteworthy that before I could even utter one word Senator Carr came in with an interjection—the person who was responsible for a whole host of questions that cost the education department, if I recall, more than $1 million to answer. If you were to add the two figures that Senator Marshall has just indicated, there are 700 questions—

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

Mr President, I rise on a point of order that goes to relevance. The minister is abusing the process here. The minister was asked a specific question and he is now trying to make a political attack on Senator Carr.

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

Well, I suggest he can speak in the taking note debate. The senator has complied with standing orders; he has asked a direct question. Mr President, I ask you to ask the minister to answer the question.

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Senate will come to order! Senator Abetz.

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

I thought Mr Rudd was the only one with a glass jaw, but it looks as though it runs in the leadership of the Labor Party! The point that I was making was that the number is around 700 questions. That is one very huge workload by anybody’s standards. What we had in that period of time as well was a change in the ministry, and it is vitally important, especially in this sensitive area, to ensure that every answer is technically correct. As I understand it from the minister’s office, these questions are being answered, are being worked through. Often, answers are provided to the minister’s office and they then seek further information and it goes back to the department. It is taking a long time. I accept and acknowledge that that would be frustrating to those senators who have asked those questions and are seeking answers to them. I have raised that with the minister’s office and I have been given the assurance that they are working on providing the answers as expeditiously as possible.

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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

You would accept the minister’s response if it had some accuracy behind it, but the reality is that in the last estimates round all the outstanding questions asked of DEWR in respect of why they have not responded were answered this way. The heads of the departments said that all the answers had been provided to the minister’s office. They are sitting in the minister’s office being unanswered to us and to the Senate. The minister has the answers, which go to the question of the operations of the Work Choices legislation, the most vicious attack on working people’s terms and conditions of employment we have ever witnessed in this country. We have known that this attack reduces the wages and conditions of Australian workers and the government has known it too. The government knew it in the first round of Senate estimates when they provided the statistics to demonstrate that categorically. Since then they have stopped collecting the statistics and stopped answering our questions, yet the minister has the answers but just does not want to pass them on.

Up until the minister now, the minister and everyone else in the government have been saying how fair the Work Choices legislation is. When we asked questions, over two rounds of estimates, which went to that detail, what did we get back? No answers were received by the Senate. The answers simply went to the minister’s office, and the minister then used that information to draft amendments, because what those answers will tell the minister is that the government were absolutely wrong. Work Choices is unfair. Work Choices does reduce the wages and conditions and the family circumstances of working people in this country.

It is inappropriate that the minister continues to sit on the answers and not provide them to the Senate committee, especially when we are on the eve of another round of Senate estimates. That will be two rounds of Senate estimates without having the questions answered. We will go through another one; the questions will not be answered. On top of that, we have a Senate inquiry into the proposed amendment legislation on Work Choices. How is the Senate and how are Senate committees expected to do their work properly if these very fundamental questions about the operation of Work Choices are not provided to the Senate to enable us as a Senate committee and the Senate as a whole to use that information in our deliberations? It is completely unsatisfactory. The minister’s response that somehow these questions have taken up enormous amounts of time and resources, I must say, does not ring true because every department, in every instance, has done the work and provided the answers to the minister. The minister is simply sitting on the answers. The government do not want to provide the answers to the Senate because they know it proves what the opposition has been saying about Work Choices since day one. It is time the minister convinced the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations to come clean and present to the committee the answer to the questions.

Question agreed to.

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

Mr President, on a point of order: I did not want to interrupt the eloquence of my good friend, but I was not aware that you could raise at this point unanswered questions from an estimates committee. You certainly can under standing order 74, but thank goodness I did not take the point of order before such an eloquent speech. I just want to know whether we are setting a precedent now and that we can do that into the future. You might like to reflect on that, Mr President, and on standing order 74.

Paul Calvert (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand that standing order 74 was amended on 11 December last year to allow this to happen.