Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to very briefly talk to the report from the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties, which is a committee I have the honour to be a member of. It is a very hardworking committee chaired by Dr Andrew Southcott, from the other place. The treaty committee looks through a great number of treaties. It is a surprise to me, having just joined the committee, how many treaties the Australian government deals with each month. There are an enormous number. I think that most people would be surprised at the number of treaties that are dealt with.

It disturbs me that the committee which is meant to scrutinise these particular treaties does so only after they have all entered into operation. It seems to me that parliamentary oversight of these treaties would be better done at an earlier stage in the process. I remember I was speaking on a treaty here in this chamber and then a couple of months later when I went to my first treaties committee meeting I found that the committee was then just looking at that treaty which had already been adopted and been through parliament. The process seems wrong to me. This is something that I think the government should have a look at. It is not an urgent matter, but I think in the next few months, perhaps following the election, the government should really have a look at the purpose of having parliamentary scrutiny of treaties. There seems to be little point in having scrutiny of treaties if the treaties are already signed and in operation by the time the scrutiny takes place. Why do we bother? I think that is something the government should have a look at in the fullness of time.

Question agreed to.