Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I table draft regulations relating to the National Health Amendment (Pharmaceutical and Other Benefits—Cost Recovery) Bill 2008 and I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the draft regulations.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the draft regulations relating to the National Health Amendment (Pharmaceutical and Other Benefits—Cost Recovery) Bill 2008 be referred to the Community Affairs Committee for inquiry and report by 2 October 2008.

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just very quickly with respect to this matter, this particular action is one that was actually requested during the second reading debate on the legislation. While the opposition is not opposing this reference through the motion, we are quite concerned that the government did not actually listen to senators during the debate when we mentioned in our contributions that this was a course of action that we would consider important in the deliberations on this piece of legislation.

Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McLucas interjecting—

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McLucas, I will take your interjection. I know that Senator Fielding actually asked for this reference prior to the ballot. I mentioned it in my speech in the second reading debate. I can say to you, quite frankly, that it was particularly the understanding of some of us that this action was not going to occur. I repeat comments that I made earlier: our deliberations on this piece of legislation were made much more difficult by the fact that the regulations were not available to the committee when the inquiry was conducted. That is reflected in both the majority report and the minority report. I did say in my comments during the second reading debate that we appreciated the fact that the government did make the regulations available, although we were concerned that they were not made available until after the committee had reported.

The government seem to be in all sorts of disarray with respect to this piece of legislation and their management of government business through the house, in that they come in here this afternoon, after a piece of legislation has been defeated in this chamber, and seek leave to refer the regulations that are appended to that piece of legislation to a committee, when they could well have been considered by that committee prior to the vote actually being taken in the chamber. Perhaps the government may learn some lessons in the management of legislation and the way that they interact with senators in this place so as to not find themselves in the situation where they have to come into the chamber, after a piece of legislation has been defeated on the floor of the chamber, and seek to refer regulations that are effectively supported by that piece of legislation. Through that process of the legislation having been defeated, there is effectively nothing to support the regulations without the government looking to return the legislation to the parliament, and obviously that is what they intend to do. So I would suggest that the government’s strategists have a bit of a look at the way that they are operating—perhaps even be a bit more open with the way that they are communicating with senators in this place—and they may not find themselves in such a difficult situation as they have, where a bill has been defeated on the floor of the parliament and they seek to bring in regulations that relate to that after the fact.

Question agreed to.