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

I move:

That:

(1)

On Tuesday, 18 September 2007:

(a)

the hours of meeting shall be 12.30 pm to 6.30 pm and 7.30 pm to adjournment;

(b)

the routine of business from 7.30 pm shall be government business only; and

(c)

the question for the adjournment of the Senate shall be proposed at 10 pm.

(2)

On Thursday, 20 September 2007:

(a)

the hours of meeting shall be 9.30 am to 6.30 pm and 7.30 pm to adjournment;

(b)

consideration of general business and consideration of committee reports, government responses and Auditor-General’s reports under standing order 62(1) and (2) shall not be proceeded with;

(c)

the routine of business from 12.45 pm till not later than 2 pm, and from not later than 4.30 pm shall be government business only;

(d)

divisions may take place after 4.30 pm; and

(e)

the question for the adjournment of the Senate shall be proposed after the Senate has finally considered the bills listed below, including any messages from the House of Representatives:

Australian Crime Commission Amendment Bill 2007

Australian Technical Colleges (Flexibility in Achieving Australia’s Skills Needs) Amendment Bill (No. 2) 2007

Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Amendment (Terrorist Material) Bill 2007

Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Democratic Plebiscites) Bill 2007

Communications Legislation Amendment (Information Sharing and Datacasting) Bill 2007

Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Legislation Amendment (Further 2007 Budget Measures) Bill 2007

Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs Legislation Amendment (Child Disability Assistance) Bill 2007

Financial Framework Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2007

Health Insurance Amendment (Medicare Dental Services) Bill 2007

Health Legislation Amendment Bill 2007

Higher Education Endowment Fund Bill 2007

Higher Education Endowment Fund (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2007

Higher Education Support Amendment (Extending FEE-HELP for VET Diploma and VET Advanced Diploma Courses) Bill 2007

Indigenous Education (Targeted Assistance) Amendment (Cape York Measures) Bill 2007

Judges’ Pensions Amendment Bill 2007

Federal Magistrates Amendment (Disability and Death Benefits) Bill 2007

National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Bill 2007

Quarantine Amendment (Commission of Inquiry) Bill 2007

Social Security Amendment (2007 Measures No. 1) Bill 2007

Social Security Amendment (2007 Measures No. 2) Bill 2007

Social Security Legislation Amendment (2007 Budget Measures for Students) Bill 2007

Superannuation Legislation Amendment Bill 2007

Tax Laws Amendment (2007 Measures No. 4) Bill 2007

Taxation (Trustee Beneficiary Non-disclosure Tax) Bill (No. 1) 2007

Taxation (Trustee Beneficiary Non-disclosure Tax) Bill (No. 2) 2007

Tax Laws Amendment (2007 Measures No. 5) Bill 2007

Tax Laws Amendment (2007 Measures No. 6) Bill 2007

Telecommunications (Interception and Access) Amendment Bill 2007

Trade Practices Amendment (Small Business Protection) Bill 2007

Trade Practices Legislation Amendment Bill (No. 1) 2007.

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

I do not want to take up a long period of the Senate’s time but I do think this does need some explanation. The government proposes an extension of hours on Tuesday night till 10 pm, with a dinner break, plus an extension of hours on Thursday night. This seems to suggest that Thursday night will be open-ended until we finish the legislative program as outlined, which consists of a considerable number of bills. It is assumed—and the government may want to expand on this—that at a particular late point on Thursday night we may adjourn and resume on Friday. We need a clear indication from the government about Friday. People do have matters for which they need to arrange travel and appointments that they need to keep or abandon, as the case may be. If, so early in the legislative program, we are sitting extended hours to deal with the legislation, the question that has to be asked, and answered by the government, is whether, and why, all of these legislative items are of an urgent nature and are required to be completed in this week or whether they can reasonably be held over till the next sitting fortnight—that is, unless the government says that this is the last week we are going to sit and that it is an end of session period. Up till now, the government, it seems, has been treating each week as a last week of sitting.

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

Business as usual.

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

It did that in the past sitting fortnight, and the government has not been able to say that it is business as usual. We now have a case where the government has a significant number of bills that it is requesting be put through, presumably by Thursday night, the early hours of Friday morning or later on Friday, and the government does need to make a case as to whether those bills are in fact urgent for this week and whether they have a start-up date that requires them to be addressed. There is one, the Australian Crime Commission Amendment Bill 2007, which we have received a briefing on, and it could be said that the Quarantine Amendment (Commission of Inquiry) Bill 2007 is one such bill; but, in respect of the remainder of the bills, the government does need to make a case. When you look at the legislative package, you see that even a conservative estimate would put the hours of government business time required to deal with that legislation at somewhere between 21 and 30-odd hours, providing that there are no hiccups. In a less than ordinary week of the Senate, government business takes up about 51 per cent of the time, which means that you are looking at 15-odd hours of government time to be able to deal with legislation. This suggests that there is a huge gap between what the government expects and wants in the legislative program and the hours that are available to do it.

The Senate should not be treated as a rubber stamp. Each bill needs to be considered carefully, debated and put, and amendments need to be argued for and either carried or lost, as the case may be. If the government is going to maintain its position that it requires all of these bills to be passed by Friday without providing a justification as to their urgency and without a full explanation then the government has, whether or not it wants to admit it, treated the Senate as a rubber stamp and it has not ensured that proper debate has been undertaken.

To look at the particular issues, the government has indicated—if not in actual words then in substance—that it has a program that would otherwise be an end of session program. Therefore, the government needs to make clear whether it is in fact saying that this is the end of the session and that it does not expect that the sittings will resume in October. The government should also undertake to prioritise the legislation, because the other question that arises is: if, through the ordinary course of work on Friday, the passage of the bills has not been completed, does the government intend to continue to sit through Friday night or to abandon the remaining bills, and, if so, which ones? In other words, is it going to prioritise the legislation or simply work through the list ad seriatim?

The opposition has always taken the view, and continues to take the view, that we will work diligently with those pieces of legislation to ensure that they are properly scrutinised and dealt with. We will not, as others might argue we will do, filibuster the legislative program. But, when I look at the bills that need to be dealt with, it does seem to me that the government in this instance has bitten off more than it can chew—and, may I say, without a clear justification for every one of those bills. The government does seem to be in a less than desirable position. Either it is not managing the program very well or it is treating it like an end of session. That is the position the government needs to explain to the Senate today.

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

This is the government clearing the decks for the election but being rude and noncommunicative in the process. There ought to have been an explanation from Senator Abetz at the start of this debate, not at the end. Senator Ludwig is very right: we should know what the program is for Friday if that is the intention, and if it is not the intention, the Senate ought to have been given the courtesy of being told that. One would expect that from the government, but we do not get that. If ever you needed a further example of why the government deserves to lose its majority and its ability to treat this Senate with contempt, here it is again. So clearing the decks for the election is written into this motion.

When we come back, I expect the government will be on this side of the chamber and in smaller numbers, and we will get back to discussing properly the programming of Senate sittings so that the public gets the best out of them and, at the same time, senators are able to plan the way in which we are able to deal with legislation. Might I add that there are 33 pieces of legislation on this slate, and one or two have already been dealt with.

The role of the Senate as house of review is to be able to go to the electorate and talk about legislation and to come back better informed, with amendments and with a government that is able to take them into account. None of that is happening here. This is just a directive from the Prime Minister’s office which says, ‘Clear the slate on Thursday night or Friday and get us out of here so that we can get ready for an election.’ There is a list of bills. The ministers are competing; they all want the legislation to go through. This is the way in which the government rides roughshod across this very important part of the democratic system—this Senate, this house of review. This motion says nothing about review. The public is locked out. The input that we should have is not going to be available. There is no excuse for this. We have sitting days in October, November and December if the government is of a mind to wait that long, but of course it is not.

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

And when might the election be?

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

Senator Abetz asks me when the election is going to be. It shows you how much out of the Prime Minister’s circuit he may be. Maybe that is because he mucked up the pulp mill motion so much yesterday.

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

Bob, really!

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

He protests about that, but we all know how badly he went yesterday. The point here is that this is a failure of the government to treat this Senate with the respect it deserves and to give the public the consultation they deserve. It is a pretty poor show for the last sittings in this three-year period of government, which began with the Prime Minister saying he would not treat the majority he had so unexpectedly gained in the Senate with hubris. We have seen hubris, contempt and a dismissiveness about the ability of this Senate to adequately deal with the legislation it has. We will be dealing with it. We are ready. We have got no concerns about that. The government can bring on whatever schedule it likes.

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

So what’s the complaint?

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

Senator Abetz asks, ‘What’s the complaint?’ He has got a very, very short attention span—but there you go. We might have begun with a little bit of common sense and decency here, with an explanation from Senator Abetz about whether there is any intention to sit on Friday. We are not going to get that. We will get a bit of bombast in a moment. Here in this motion, for everybody to see, is the contempt with which the Howard government has treated this Senate. That is another reason why it should lose its majority in here and why it will do so in the coming months.

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

The Democrats also wish to speak to the motion before us. As has been explained, it extends the hours of sitting this week so that we sit late tonight as well as have an open-ended adjournment on Thursday night and it requires the Senate to consider 30 bills, only one of which I think has already been passed. As mentioned by previous speakers, we have pretty much had this treatment of the Senate since we came back in August. Every week has been treated almost like a de facto final sitting week just in case the government wants to call an election. So, even back in that first fortnight in August, we had extended sitting hours to assist the government to push things through. Last week we had extended sitting hours and this week we have even more extended sitting hours. After a three-week break, the Senate is scheduled to sit on 15 October. We could sit that week and indeed the next one and still have an election before the end of the year on 1 December or 8 December—and some people speculate that that may happen. I am one of those who have the view that it will not, but it does not really matter: it is not my decision, and it is not Senator Abetz’s decision or anybody else’s; it will be the Prime Minister’s decision.

That brings up a key point that really should be made far more often: if we had fixed terms, like a number of Australian states and many other democracies around the world have, we would not continually be faced with, ‘Maybe we will; maybe we won’t,’ with how we manage our business, with whether we need to rush through all this stuff now and with whether we have got more time. If we all knew the election date well in advance then we would not have this continual abuse of process, using the possibility of an election down the line as a reason for having to push things through or extend sitting hours or do all those other things. It is a cut and dried example of why it is in the public interest and in the interest of good governance, let alone the Senate’s interest, to have a fixed term so that we know when we are going to have an election, when parliament will be prorogued and how much longer we have got to deal with the business before it.

To some extent, I do not blame the Manager of Government Business in the Senate for wanting to get through all of these pieces of legislation before the end of the week, because it is quite possible that it will be the final sitting week. The Manager of Government Business does not know. Nobody knows in the government, I am sure of that, except possibly Mr Howard—and even he may well not have made up his mind yet. So, in that very narrow construct within which the Manager of Government Business has to operate, it is good practice for him to push us all through, and I am sure that is what he is being directed to do, in any case.

But the key question is of good practice for the public. We are, with these 30 pieces of legislation that are listed here, making laws. We are not just passing through some point-scoring opportunities or some things that the government can tick on their resume, saying, ‘We did this’ to help them with the election, or things for each of the rest of us here on the other side of the chamber to use as positioning opportunities to say: ‘We supported this’, ‘We opposed this’ or ‘We tried to amend this.’ The key thing we are doing is passing and considering laws that affect people’s lives directly, and it is simply bad process and bad governance to be pushing through 30 pieces of legislation in three days. On the Thursday night, under this motion, some of them will be pushed through probably well into the early hours of Friday. That is simply bad practice, and I do not believe that any credible argument can be put to say that that is a good way to make laws.

It is worth noting that putting through 30 bills in the space of a few days is not just a one-off for this week. I draw the public’s attention—if not the Senate’s—to the very useful information and statistics provided by the Department of the Senate on the number of sitting days and pieces of legislation passed each sitting week in each year. According to the most recent edition, going up to the end of last week, 13 September, we had had just 37 sitting days this year so far, not counting this week, and in that time the Senate had passed 154 pieces of legislation. I have not done the maths precisely, but I think that is about four pieces of legislation per day. Of course, not all day every day is spent considering legislation. According to the statistics, 85 hours and 53 minutes was the total amount spent on government business up until the end of last week for 154 pieces of legislation. On top of that, this week we will add another four days to those 37 sitting days—so that will be 41 sitting days—and we will add another 30 pieces of legislation, so the statistics will go up to 184 pieces of legislation in 41 sitting days. That, most probably, will be it for the year. There is an outside chance that we might come back again after the election, if it is held early, or an outside chance that we may come back again in three weeks time if the election is not held until December. We will potentially go through this again. Quite what legislation we will have left to deal with, if we do come back in three weeks time, I am not so sure about, which is why I am not terribly convinced that we will be coming back—but, as I said, that is a bit of an academic debate.

The Democrats’ core objection is not to any specific piece of legislation on the list. We can outline our objections in the debates on the pieces of legislation, and we can move our amendments, as we will do. Our core objection is that it compounds what is already a very poor record in terms of proper governance, due process and good public administration. We will now have 184 pieces of legislation put through this chamber in 41 sitting days, and that is not adequate. Of course, Senate committee inquiries have looked at some of them as well. It is a matter of public record that some of those inquiries have been grotesquely inadequate and, frankly, contemptuous. The simple, core matter of this Senate as a legislature and as a house of review is that its role is being debauched by the politicisation, the political motivation and the abuse of the Senate majority that the coalition now have. It should not be any surprise that they are doing that. It was predicted that they would do it, and it is not a particular slur on the nature of politics for people who follow the conservative parties. It is a natural commentary on human nature and the nature of politics.

Anytime you give a government control of both houses of parliament, they will use it to suit their own interests rather than look at the interests of the community. That is human nature. It is something that history shows us has happened many times before. It will continue to happen again if the government maintain control of the Senate after the election, or if any government down the track, of any political persuasion, do not have a house of parliament such as the Senate that is able to provide some check and balance and some form of review over what they are doing, however imperfect that may be. I certainly do not suggest that it has operated perfectly in that regard in the past, but it has certainly provided some mechanism for improving legislation. I think ‘improving’ is the key word, not just reviewing and holding up and examining it for an intellectual exercise, but improving the laws that we pass, laws that, I once again remind the Senate and the community, affect them directly—and sometimes quite enormously and comprehensively—often for the good, which is why we do it. I hope, in an ideal world, it would always be for the good, but we would improve the positive impacts of the laws we pass if we actually did our job properly and allowed proper time for scrutiny. You do not get that when you pass 184 pieces of legislation in 41 sitting days. You do not get it when you are passing 30 pieces of legislation in a week. And you do not get it when you are doing it at two o’clock in the morning, basically just shovelling through all of the leftovers so that everybody can get the hell out of here and get back to campaigning again.

It is not adequate. It is a compelling argument for restoring the Senate to being independent of the government of the day. Once again, it is also a compelling argument for why we need fixed terms, something the Democrats have called for many years and certainly will continue to do so.

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

I want to briefly indicate that, as far as the opposition is concerned, we do not believe the government has made a case for this proposed resolution or for these extended sitting hours this week. It has not demonstrated why there is urgency in respect of many of these bills. One has to assume that the only reason that we will be sitting late tonight, late on Thursday night and till Friday afternoon is that there is an intent to call an election sometime between Friday and when the Senate is due to sit again in the middle of October. Otherwise, why is there the necessity to push through these bills, many of which do not have an urgency tag on them?

The government have said, too, that they want to finish by Friday afternoon. We know it is not possible, on the basis of the hours allocated, for these bills to be completed by Friday afternoon, yet they have not identified to us which are the priority bills that they want to have dealt with. They are simply saying that all of them are in the net and their intent is to finish all of them. What that will mean, if that is pursued, is that there will not be sufficient time to give these bills proper consideration by the Senate.

We have indicated that we are not going to be steamrolled into passing legislation; we will deal with each bill on its merits and we will deal with it in a considered way. We are not going to be steamrolled just to ensure that the government meets its objective of getting these 30 bills through by Friday afternoon.

As I have indicated, I do not believe that the government has made a case for having these additional sitting hours, nor has it attempted to make a case for these additional sitting hours. It is simply putting forward this motion because it knows ultimately that it has got the numbers to force it through and the forces to deal with these bills in that way. I want to make it clear on behalf of the opposition that we will be opposing the motion.

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

Anybody listening to this debate could be forgiven for thinking that the Howard government has steamrolled legislation through this Senate. I remind senators, and all those who have contributed to this debate have made this allegation, that this is in fact a motion to extend the hours of sitting of the Senate. It will allow the Senate extra time above and beyond that which is usual. If the Howard government is supposedly so determined to use the Senate as a rubber stamp and to not listen to debate, why on earth is it moving a motion, and using its numbers against the opposition, to give the opposition extra hours of sitting? This is the sort of humbug that, unfortunately, continually gets reported to the Australian people: that we are treating the Senate as a rubber stamp, when we are the ones agitating to give the Senate more time to consider legislation.

Indeed, the Howard government’s record is very instructive. Since 1901, in the 106 years since Federation, there have only been 30 packages of bills that have taken more than 20 hours in the Senate—thirty packages of bills or programs that have taken more than 20 hours of debate. Do you know how many of those packages have been under the Howard government, in the past 10 years? Fifteen of them; half of them. So you see, on objective evidence, that the coalition as a government have been more than willing to allow the Senate time to consider matters which are of concern to it and to the Australian people. Half of the measures, out of 30, that have taken more than 20 hours to debate in this chamber have been debated during the past 10 years of the Howard government. The other 15 took place between 1901 and 1996—that is, over 95 years. That is how we as a coalition government have treated this Senate: with the respect that it constitutionally deserves and of course democratically deserves as well.

So it is a very bizarre argument when those on the other side assert, ‘We want more time; we need more time,’ but then come in here and say, ‘We will vote down the government’s motion giving us more time.’ That is what they need to explain to the Australian people.

In relation to the quite bizarre contribution by Senator Bob Brown—I emphasise ‘Bob’; I notice Senator Carol Brown in the chamber, so I hasten to make that very important distinction—we have become used to such contributions.

Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Bob Brown has left already.

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

Yes, indeed; you are right, Senator Birmingham. Having given his spray, he now has left the chamber and that is what we have come to expect from him. He has made some quite bizarre commentaries in relation to this about the ‘rude’ and ‘non-communicative’ nature of the government on these measures. He knows as well as anybody in this chamber that the unsuspecting public listening in would not be aware that we have a very regular meeting of leaders and whips that includes the Greens, the Democrats, Family First, Labor and the coalition, and we seek to go through the measures and the management of the Senate. We had such a meeting, and the Greens were represented. They were given a list of the bills, and we discussed why the government wanted these measures put through. So to mischievously suggest to the Australian people that we have just dumped this motion in without explanation is, unfortunately, misleading. I am not allowed to say ‘deliberately misleading’, but I know that Senator Bob Brown knows the procedures and that he hopes the Australian people listening in do not.

The bills, which we gave notice of some days ago now, that are referred to in the motion contain a lot of budget measures, and most senators from both sides would agree that it is important to get budget measures through. There is a substantial amount of non-controversial legislation as well. It was instructive—and Senator Bartlett did aver this fact; it was a weakly made point, but I accept that he at least had the integrity to mention this—that nobody in the debate averred to a single piece of legislation, in the list that we provided, that required urgent or detailed consideration, or provided objection to the legislation.

We as a government are not treating the Senate as a rubber stamp; we are, in fact, proactively moving to give the Senate more time to consider the legislation. On the one hand, the Labor Party say we are a government that has run out of puff; on the other hand, they say we are putting too much legislation forward. Make up your mind: which is it? We are still legislating for the benefit of the Australian people. All the arguments we heard this afternoon were exactly the same arguments we heard about a fortnight ago, when exactly the same considerations were being put forward. I encourage all senators to vote for this motion, which will give the Senate more time—I stress ‘more time’—to consider the legislation that is before us.

Question put:

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