Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the committee does not insist on its amendments to which the House of Representatives has disagreed.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that the question be put separately on the amendments relating to the transfer of the Communications Fund; namely, amendments (3), (4), (5), (8), (10), (11), (12) and (13). This goes to one of the most contentious and divisive times that I and the Nationals have been part of in this parliament. When I entered this parliament in 2005, the Telstra debate was front and centre. The Nationals went to the people of Australia and asked for their trust that, on the sale of Telstra, their interests would be protected. Through that process, funds were negotiated. There was the $1.1 billion Connect Australia fund and a $2 billion trust fund. I can remember every part of that debate. I can remember negotiating for the lifting of the Natural Heritage Trust of Australia Act for the assessment of how those funds would be delivered. I remember negotiations where they wanted it to be in shares and we made sure that we got it in cash at the 30-day bank bill rate. It was something that was fought up hill and down dale. The Australian people, especially the people of regional Australia, were extremely sceptical about whether or not they could trust us. This issue was one of trust, and we entered into a contract with the Australian people that we could be trusted.

The Labor Party pilloried us, especially the National Party, and said that we could not be trusted and that Telstra should remain a publicly owned entity. It is therefore surprising that tonight the Labor Party are moving to take away any semblance of protection of regional Australia, to move the funds that were there to protect those who want some form of parity. The funds were a life vest for people in regional Australia who had said, ‘We take on board that you have put aside the money, the returns on which can deal with the issues that come before us.’ We had quite substantial amounts, in the hundreds of millions, that were going to drop down for everything from mobile phone towers to broadband that would go out to the regions and deal with the issues that these people had so vehemently and rightly put forward to us.

These issues brought about a contract not just with the National Party but with the coalition, and the coalition have reflected that trust in the way they voted in the Senate only a matter of hours ago and in the lower house only a matter of an hour ago. And now this issue comes back to us. I believe the same trust, the same purpose and the same philosophy that were behind the earlier votes should stand now; that there is nothing to differentiate what happened at 10.22 from what will happen at around half past 11. It is the same issue and it raises the same concerns. The people of Australia, particularly people of regional Australia, would rightly pillory us, especially those of us in the National Party, if we were to have a different view. We would prove ourselves untrustworthy, and that is the decimation of any political force. This issue comes into a clearer light when we hear Telstra talk about providing a service some time way into the future to 80 per cent of Australia. That means the regional areas plus some and plus some again get left out.

It is unfortunate if at times there is a division. No-one wants a division. Everybody wants the capacity to go forward in a constructive way. But when the issue arises you cannot run away from it. You cannot say, ‘This is too close to another issue of the same concern; therefore it must be ignored.’ The honour that you have of sitting in this chamber means that you must call it the way you see it. I do not think for one moment that anybody reading a paper tomorrow—and this will be a big issue; this will be a monstrous issue—will expect anything less from this chamber, as part of this parliament, than to represent the people of Australia on the issues that you went into a contract with them on at the last election. You entered into a contract. You said that you would stand by your words. I know absolutely that, should a different opinion be reflected, people will pull out every speech that everyone has made and say, ‘This is what you said then and this is what you say now. How do you explain to us that there has been some sort of epiphany, a change of mood?’ There is no explanation.

I know that the Labor Party will say, ‘If the $2 billion is to be removed from this fund and remain quarantined for regional telecommunications, the infrastructure fund will fall over.’ That is a load of rubbish. We have checked this out. We have had it from the Clerk of the Senate that this bill can go forward without that $2 billion in it and they can start spending the money as soon as they like. So there is not one reason why this $2 billion should not be quarantined and why the contract between the people of Australia and the people of this chamber should not be honoured.

The National Party stand here tonight to make sure that that contract is honoured and that that position is maintained. We say to the Australian people in all states that our intention tonight is not to play politics but to play the card of trust and to ensure that those funds remain in the capacity for which they were originally designed. We understand the circumspection that people had when they initially gave us that trust to go forward with this issue. We felt that. We saw the emails and the correspondence that came in. I hope that this in some way says that you could trust us then and you can still trust us now. We will stand by you and we will make sure that this thing is quarantined. We will make sure that people, no matter where they live in this great nation, have some sense of parity on the issue of communications. We will make sure that that parity is spread throughout our nation and not tucked up in little corners here and there.

The moment we start dividing our nation into the haves and the have-nots, into corners where the services are and corners where the services are not, and as soon as we start making excuses for that, then the only people we fool are ourselves. And we do something worse than that: we take away the respect that the Australian people have for this chamber. So it is absolutely crucial tonight that the vote that we passed here earlier on today be respected, that the vote that the lower house passed only an hour ago is respected and that there is consistency. What underpins trust is consistency of purpose and consistency of actions.

The Labor Party have moved away from consistency and have completely denigrated the debate. We are seeing all the rhetoric and rubbish that we saw in the Telstra debate. They are doing that tonight in the way they vote. Without a shadow of a doubt, everything that they espoused about looking after regional Australia is rubbish. They are saying that clearly in the way they act tonight. They are moving that money away. They are going to use it for another purpose. They are cutting the people of regional Australia loose. We are not going to cut the people of regional Australia loose. I hope that there will be consistency and trust involved in the way that this chamber delivers an outcome.

To all those who had concerns about the sale of Telstra: you must vote to make sure that this $2 billion remains quarantined. To all those who believe the message that they sent to regional Australia through their papers and their speeches: it is important that that remains consistent and that you vote to make sure that this $2 billion is quarantined. You can only vote for the things you can actually deliver. You cannot vote for the delivery of a promise on the never-never—a promise that at some time in the future things will be better. People will say, ‘When you had the power and the capacity to make a difference, you did not act according to the contract and the warrant that we gave you, so how can we possibly trust you when you haven’t got the power?’

Chair, this is a crucial issue. I believe strongly that a coalition is the best form of government this nation has. I believe absolutely that the only way that a coalition can win an election—and that is what I will be aiming for—is to make sure that that warrant, that trust, those articles in the paper, those speeches, those telephone conversations and those public meetings are all honoured on such an absolutely iconic matter.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just need to clarify your original position, Senator Joyce. I need to know whether, in requesting that clauses 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 12 and 13 be dealt with separately, you intended each clause to be dealt with on an individual basis or as a group.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I see them as contemporaneous and to be dealt with as a single group.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So we will be dealing with all of those clauses as a group.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes.

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor’s attack on the telecommunications future of the regions has been further confirmed this week with this legislation, which scraps the $2 billion Communications Fund set up by the coalition to future-proof services in country Australia. The government’s Nation-building Funds Bill 2008 was successfully amended earlier today in the Senate to prevent the transfer of the Communications Fund to the Building Australia Fund.

The Communications Fund was pivotal to the Nationals’ support for the final sale of Telstra. When we passed the legislation to give this commitment life, the then Deputy Prime Minister, Mark Vaile, said:

What we are delivering today emanated from a resolution of the Queensland National Party’s conference in 2005, when they decided to support the sale of the final tranche of Telstra. There were a range of recommendations there and one of them was to create the perpetual Communications Fund with $2 billion, and it is done.

To understand how crucial this fund is to the Nationals and to the bush, I want to trace the history of the Telstra sales and canvass the issues that were front and centre for us. When I was first a senator, in the 1980s, it was not easy to contact a grazier in western Queensland unless you chartered a flight out there. Party lines meant that several families shared a single and often unreliable telephone line. STD call rates commonly applied between a homestead and a cottage on the same property. School of the Air services were also inadequate. New phone connections took months, and the onset of the wet could mean long outages of communication lines. Meanwhile, the rest of the world was improving its productivity, and cities were making leaps and bounds in communications based service delivery.

At that time, the Labor government owned Telecom. It was obvious that rural services would have to be greatly improved if primary industry were to be competitive and if rural families were to be treated the same as other Australians. The infrastructure upgrade required would be substantial. Labor had three choices: to fund the upgrade through its budget, to fund the upgrade through the sale of its shares in Telecom or to just leave Australia as it was. Labor chose the third option: they did nothing. The complaints about Telecom grew progressively worse.

Three years ago I tried to ring the same grazier out west whom I could not reach years ago because of the party line system. He took the call, on his mobile phone, out at the windmill on his property. Ten years had made a big difference to communications on the land, thanks to a coalition government that was prepared to back rural Australia with cold, hard cash—cash which has bought hundreds of mobile phone towers, abolished the pastoral call rates so that that everyone is now on untimed local calls, put the internet into remote homesteads for the cost of a local call and enabled the rolling out of high-bandwidth services. Who had ever heard of ‘bandwidth’ 13 years ago?

Where did the cash come from for this revolution? Remember the harsh decisions that had to be made by the coalition’s expenditure review committee in the first few years of government to cope with the Beazley black hole? There was definitely no room in the budget for major capital investment in bush telephones and there were many competing demands from city MPs, who greatly outweighed rural MPs. So rural telecommunications was in dire straits.

Then came the sale of the first part of Telstra, in 1997. The T1 sale saw the establishment of Networking the Nation, a general fund for regional telecommunications infrastructure, which served to highlight how thirsty the bush was for telecommunications infrastructure. The budget bottom line meant that we could not apply for help. So the Nationals eyed off the sale of T2 as a momentous opportunity to fill the gaps identified by the NFF and the Networking the Nation fund. The T2 sale only went ahead once the Nationals had secured a landmark billion-dollar social bonus package for regional Australia. This suite of programs effectively brought rural Australia online, abolished the inequitable timed local calls and saw the installation of hundreds of mobile phone towers across rural and remote Australia. Local government, education, health and even legal services were enthusiastic participants in the great hook-up that occurred as a result of the social bonus package from T2. This partial sale of Telstra, owned by all Australians, funded the infrastructure needed by the bush. There was no other way to do it.

The new millennium found rural Australia very communicative. So many options and new technologies left everyone with a taste for more—more mobile coverage, faster speeds, fewer wires, fewer faults and shorter connection times. Service, service, service! The coalition government responded with two inquiries—the Besley inquiry, in 2001, which led primarily to $163 million for mobile phone towers in smaller and smaller towns, and the Estens inquiry, in 2003, which identified broadband issues and even more mobile phone towers to be funded by the government at a cost of over $180 million. While all this money was being spent, the coalition government also moved to tighten up the regulations governing telephone companies to improve competition and enforce a customer service guarantee. All of these measures were collectively responsible for the great leap forward in the bush. This would not have been possible if the sale of Telstra had not provided the cold, hard cash to reinvest in rural infrastructure.

Then we were faced with the sale of the balance of Telstra shares. There was $1.1 million reinvested in broadband and mobile connections in rural areas. This could not be funded from the budget. There was also a $2 billion perpetual communications fund to deliver rural communications into the future where it is not otherwise commercially viable to do so. This was no time to hang up on a telephone company out of nostalgia for the times when you could never get a line. If rural Australia wanted the technology, the competitiveness, the connectedness and the education, health and other services deliverable by modern communications then there was no going back to Telstra. Telstra had to be sold to finance the major, ongoing reinvestment required. Such was the thinking of the Nationals and the people in rural, remote and regional Australia.

On 5 August 2005, state Nationals leaders from New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia welcomed a unanimous resolution from a special joint conference of state National MPs on Telstra. This resolution mirrored the resolution that was passed by the Queensland Nationals conference the previous week and subsequently endorsed by federal Nationals MPs. It stated:

This meeting of state Nationals MPs from across Australia resolved to oppose the further sale of Telstra unless all Australians in metropolitan, regional, rural and remote areas are protected from telecommunications market failure which may prevent the provision of parity of technology, services and price into the future between metropolitan and regional areas.

Towards this goal, this meeting of National Party members of parliament called for the following implementation of this resolution:

The establishment of a permanent and significant trust fund with the earnings used to provide future technology and infrastructure upgrades at parity price and service with metropolitan services in case of market failure (utilising a competitive tender process that considers providers with a permanent presence in regional Australia).

Today the Senate is faced with a decision of whether to recant on this first pillar of the covenant we made with the bush. On the day we introduced legislation to live up to our commitment and had shaken hands with the people of the bush, the then minister for communications, Senator Helen Coonan, said that the telecommunications legislation amendment bill would ensure that regional Australia’s perpetual $2 billion Communications Fund could not be pillaged. She said the bill protected in legislation the $2 billion principal of the Communications Fund so that only the interest earned from the fund’s investment, up to $400 million every three years, would be spent. It would also provide certainty for the people in regional and remote Australia that the improvements in their telecommunications service would keep pace with the rest of the nation.

Labor had committed to draining the entire $2 billion from the Communications Fund, to rob the bush of its ongoing funding and to squander it on a commercially viable network estimated to reach around 75 per cent of the population. The passage of this bill through the parliament will protect rural and regional Australia from the gross economic irresponsibility of the Labor Party.

The Communications Fund was established by the Howard government in 2005 and provides a guaranteed income stream to fund hard infrastructure for regional communities such as additional mobile towers, broadband provision and even backhaul fibre capabilities. Interest earned from the Communications Fund is used to implement the government’s responses to recommendations made by the triennial independent regional telecommunications reviews.

In speaking on that bill I said that it seeks to lock up $2 billion that the National Party won in exchange for the sale of Telstra. In the party room or forums we said that, if Telstra is sold, then we want to ensure that rural and regional Australia never gets left behind as it was at the end of the Labor administration. I told the Senate that this bill seeks to lock in that $2 billion under the legislation and it can never be removed unless Labor has a majority in the Senate. I look around and I do not see a Labor majority in the Senate and we will see that when it comes to the vote.

I know that the Nationals do not walk away from a handshake with the people of the bush. We promised them this fund for their telecommunication future. They said: ‘On the basis of our trust in you to keep to that, we say, “go ahead and finish the sale of Telstra”.’ I will walk across the floor before I will walk away from that trust. I note that the opposition in the other place has just voted to insist on the Senate’s amendments. When I vote that way too, who will be really crossing the floor?

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What we are seeing tonight is really quite a disgraceful performance by the government. In my view the government is treating the Senate with utter contempt. Today we saw in one form or another all non-government senators combine to pass the government’s legislation but with amendments which substantially and considerably improve these government bills. Variously with the Greens, Senator Xenophon and Senator Fielding, the coalition has passed amendments to these bills which radically improve the transparency attached to the government’s dealing with the taxpayers’ billions of dollars and radically improve the accountability of the government to the parliament and to the people of Australia for the expenditure of those funds.

I point in particular to the proposed joint committee of oversight of these three particular funds and the reporting mechanisms that these amendments imposed on the government in relation to expenditure from these funds. They are all very sensible and very common sense amendments to ensure transparency by this government in its dealings with billions and billions of dollars of taxpayers’ funds.

One of the most significant amendments that has been carried by the Senate was to prevent the Labor Party raiding the Communications Fund established by this parliament. The Communications Fund was agreed by this parliament, with the support of the Labor Party, as a mechanism to set aside from the sale of Telstra—a sale which the Labor Party opposed to the bitter end—some $2 billion in perpetuity to ensure that the earnings of that fund, some $100 million a year, would be available in perpetuity to ensure that the telecommunications of rural and regional Australians were constantly capable of being improved in response to the reviews of the Glasson inquiry. That now, as proposed by the Labor Party, is all to be swept away.

The $2 billion would not be there if the Labor Party had had their way. If the Labor Party had had their way Telstra would never have been sold and there would have been no $2 billion. As a result of the compact, as Senator Boswell quite rightly said, that our government reached between rural Australia and the government, we sold Telstra and to ensure that rural and regional telecommunications would be constantly improved, we took $2 billion of the sale proceeds, put it in the Communications Fund and we locked it away from the ravages of future governments by guaranteeing in perpetuity that fund with the earnings available, as I said, to ensure the improvement of telecommunications.

The Labor Party has hypocritically and cynically taken that $2 billion and then they are going to destroy the Communications Fund and put the $2 billion towards their national broadband network. The whole country knows what a farce and a joke and a cruel hoax this national broadband network is. Today we have already seen just the administration costs of it blow out by 100 per cent. The government set aside in the budget $10 million to pay for all the legal fees and the consultants and everything else to administer this project. Today in the additional estimates they provided another $10 million to do that; a 100 per cent increase to $20 million to administer this. Where is that going to go? To the lawyers and the accountants on this mythical national broadband network, the construction of which was meant to commence by the end of this year, in 27 days. What a joke!

That is what is going to happen to the $2 billion set aside for rural and regional Australia. It is to be blown on this national broadband network. I can guarantee rural and regional Australians are not going to see anything from the national broadband network. Not only that but the government has cancelled the OPEL contract, which was a guarantee by our government to put $1 billion towards providing high-speed broadband to rural and regional Australians. One of the first acts of this government was to abolish that OPEL contract. It was an outrageous act and a complete slur, a complete contempt on rural and regional Australians by this Labor government. So country Australians should be absolutely disgusted with this Labor government in its actions so far on telecommunications.

The fact is that the Senate has passed the government’s bills. We are not blocking these bills. We have passed these bills with amendments. And what has this arrogant government done? Tonight it has simply rejected all the amendments. I do not think there is one amendment that this government has been prepared to accept—‘No, we don’t want any of that; who cares about the Senate?’ For 60 years the Labor Party wanted to get rid of the Senate, and I think most of the Labor Party still want to get rid of the Senate. They have treated it with utter contempt tonight.

I regret to say that, on balance, it is the coalition’s position that we will not insist on these amendments. We know very well what the government will do if we vote here tonight to insist on these amendments. The government are so obsessed with spin. They do not actually make decisions; they just do the spin. They will assert, falsely and contemptuously—through the media machine that the government run—that the coalition has blocked these infrastructure bills. The government will spend the next two months falsely asserting all over the country that we are responsible for denying infrastructure funding to every road, bridge and port in the country, simply because we have sought to improve these flawed bills of the government.

We are not going to let the government get away with that. We are not prepared to let the government run that fallacious argument. It is utterly fallacious. We are not going to be cornered by the Labor Party on this issue. I guarantee to the Labor Party that the coalition will attack this Labor Party all over the country for the next two years for the contempt with which it is treating rural and regional Australia in relation to telecommunications. It is utterly disgraceful. I want to confirm tonight that a re-elected coalition government will guarantee in perpetuity $100 million each and every year to be taken from the budget and invested in rural and regional telecommunications. That is a commitment that I have authority to make on behalf of the coalition. When we are re-elected in some 18- to 20-months time, every year, in perpetuity, $100 million will be set aside in the budget to be invested in improvements in rural and regional telecommunications.

So it is with considerable sadness and regret that I confirm that we will not be insisting on what I think is a very good package of amendments which would have substantially improved this bill. What we are seeing tonight is the government treating rural and regional Australia with utter contempt, which everyone living outside metropolitan Australia should never forget—and not forget at the time of the next election.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will be very brief. What a disgusting act this is! Everyone in this place and in the other place knows exactly why that $2 billion was put away in the fund. We know it is for those people out there in the bush—working hard, delivering the food, driving on the dirt roads and the rough roads—just to get a bit of a fair go when it comes to their telecommunications. I wish to express my disgust about what is happening. Minister Sherry used the word ‘outrageous’. I will use the word again: it is outrageous what they are doing. They are treating rural Australia with absolute contempt. It is a disgraceful act. The people of rural Australia will see this and they will let the government know come next election exactly what they think. That is all I have to say.

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Water Resources and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight because I believe we absolutely should be insisting on these amendments. We stood here in this Senate this afternoon and we agreed to these amendments because they were right, they were proper and they were good for rural and regional Australia. I have not changed my mind in the last few hours. The same reasons that I agreed with those amendments a few hours ago still exist. Absolutely nothing has changed—not one single thing.

Let us have a little look at why the Communications Fund was set up. The Communications Fund was set up because we need to protect rural and regional Australia—it is as simple as that. We went through a whole process of looking at the sale of Telstra, and we here in the Nationals made sure that rural and regional Australia would be protected. There is absolutely no moving away from that. We did it because it was the right and proper thing to do. We knew back then, in 2005, when the Communications Fund was set up, that if we did not move to put that protection in place, rural and regional Australians would miss out on equity in telecommunications.

Why did we do it? We did it because of the sale of Telstra. We had to be absolutely sure that there was a mechanism in place to provide funding in perpetuity to future proof rural and regional Australia, and that is what we did. And we did it in good faith and we did it with the trust of people in rural Australia. As Senator Joyce, my good colleague, said earlier, it is about trust. They trusted us and they said, ‘You go and proceed with the sale of Telstra but we know that the Communications Fund is in place to look after us.’ And why now, just a few years down the track, should we be moving away from that position? We should not be. We should not be moving one step away from that position. Communications in rural and regional Australia is absolutely a priority for us—absolutely. To sit here now, a few hours after we have agreed to the amendment not to move the Communications Fund funding to the Building Australia Fund—

Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And after they voted for it in the House of Representatives.

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Water Resources and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will take that interjection, Senator Boswell: yes, after they voted for it in the Reps.

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

An hour ago.

Fiona Nash (NSW, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Water Resources and Conservation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Xenophon: an hour ago. Why is it that we are standing here now in this chamber potentially changing our minds? It is just completely wrong. That funding that was set up is there to ensure that we deliver those services. My advice is that in the House of Representatives this evening one of the reasons given by Labor for rejecting the amendment was that the national broadband network is expected to deliver significantly improved telecommunications services to rural and remote areas. Quite frankly, that is just a blatant lie—because, guess what? Those of you in the chamber who do not know: Labor has absolutely no requirement that that $4.7 billion gets spent in regional Australia—not one bit of a requirement. And they are talking about taking this $2 billion and putting it towards that $4.7 billion. That $2 billion was set aside to future-proof rural and regional Australia, and there is absolutely no requirement from Labor to ensure that that goes to bush—not a single bit.

So what are we going to see? We are potentially going to see this $2 billion fund go into the $4.7 billion for the national broadband network and potentially see it rolled out in the cities. That is just wrong. We are going to uphold the trust that has been placed in us by the people of the bush. We are not going to step away from that for one second. It was okay three hours ago; it was okay an hour ago; and, to the Nationals sitting in this chamber, it is still okay—it is still right.

My good colleague sitting behind me, Senator Boswell, just said that he would walk across the floor before he would walk away from the people of the of the bush. That is exactly what we will do. We will not sit in this chamber and agree to hiving off that fund, taking it away from rural and regional Australia, the very people in this country who are probably doing it the toughest at the moment. I think that is the second time I have said that in this chamber this week. These are the very people who are doing it the toughest in this country, the very people who we ask to provide sustainability to this nation, the very people who we ask to provide food and fibre to this nation, and we say, ‘Oh, by the way—don’t worry about it—as for your telecommunications, we’ll let Labor just take off that $400 million every three years and throw it in the cities, because we don’t really care about you out there in the bush.’ That is not going to happen. That is absolutely not going to happen, because those people out in rural and regional Australia need our support. They trust us. As Senator Joyce said in his remarks earlier, they gave us their trust. We will not walk away from it. Our view in the Nationals is exactly the same as it was a few hours ago. It has not changed for any reason whatsoever and we will not be walking away from the people of rural and regional Australia.

Friday, 5 December 2008

Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Earlier today I supported the amendments moved by the coalition in relation to accountability, transparency, scrutiny of how these taxpayers’ funds would be spent. I also supported very strongly the amendment that dealt with the Communications Fund. That fund will not be hived off and merged into the Building Australia Fund, dissipating the promises that were made for people of regional Australia. When you look at the history of this, when you look at what Senator Joyce achieved for the people of rural and regional Australia during the privatisation process of Telstra, you see he did the right thing in ensuring that there would be a $2 billion fund in perpetuity. That is what the Communications Fund was about. That was the covenant; that was a trust with the people of the bush to make sure that that money was there in perpetuity. The government’s assurances do not comfort me. The opposition did the right thing by moving those amendments.

I have a lot of regard for Senator Minchin but I cannot understand the logic of what the coalition has done, what the Liberal Party has done by saying, ‘All these measures of transparency and accountability—we’re not going to go ahead with them, we’re not going to insist on those amendments, for the simple reason that Labor’s spin machine will say we are holding it up.’ Let the government justify that having a greater degree of scrutiny and accountability with this fund is doing the wrong thing and is somehow undermining this fund. In fact, it enhances it. I do not get this. I do not get how something as fundamental and as basic as this could simply be abandoned.

Ten years ago, Hugh Mackay the social commentator wrote something that I have kept close to me. It was an article about the culture of broken promises and its cost—the acidic, corrosive effect it has on our faith in politicians and in our institutions of democracy. Mackay said that with trust in the political process being eroded with every bent principle, every broken promise and every policy backflip, the level of cynicism has reached breaking point for many Australians. He went on to say that once trust has gone we lose interest in the question of whether or not the truth is being told. We assume it is not most of the time, but we no longer find ourselves outraged. We lower our expectations and invite the politicians to live down to them. That downward spiral of expectation traps both of us. I am not going to be part of that downward spiral. I believe these amendments ought to be adhered to, that we ought to support them, and that is what I will be doing tonight.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, would like to register my condemnation of the Labor Party for dismantling the $2 billion Communications Fund established by the former coalition government under the T3 sale of Telstra for the purpose of improving rural and regional telecommunications. It was an agreement, as many of the speakers have mentioned tonight, with the rural and regional people, with their representatives at the time. Anyway who knows about T1, T2 and T3 knows that one of the hardest jobs we had in government was to sell any part of Telstra. We not only had the Labor Party standing against us at every level, but in the rural and regional areas, rightly, it was a tough sell. We established two independent inquiries, the Besley inquiry and the Estens inquiry—I do not know in what order; I have forgotten now—to advise the government on the state of telecommunications in rural and regional areas, and they both came up with inadequacies. There were gaps, there did need to be modernising and there did need to be specific funding. We took that recommendation of those two reports.

Under the sale of T3, we set up the $2 billion Communications Fund. Any rural and regional representative in this Senate and in the House knows just how hard it was—be it at branch meetings or community meetings—to convince the people that we should sell the final part of Telstra. It was one of the toughest sells in government, but people took us on trust because, firstly, it was the final down payment on Labor’s debt. It would bring the government debt to zero, which was an enormous achievement. We needed the final sale of Telstra to do that. Secondly, the safeguards would be in place—and strengthened, for that matter. For example, the universal service obligation would be strengthened. Many of the senators here tonight played a part in that. And, thirdly, of course, there would be a dedicated fund in perpetuity, the Communications Fund, to ensure and to future-proof the telecommunications of the rural and regional areas. That was, in parlance, a deal. A deal was done and for that reason the T3 sale went through. It was a sale that did, in fact, achieve every end that we sought, in particular reducing Labor’s debt to zero—quite an achievement in itself.

Tonight we see the dismantling of that fund and we see the dismantling of that deal. It reminds me very much of a former senator here, the legendary numbers man Senator Richardson, who blew the whistle on Labor—it was probably one of the more honest moments of his life—when he said, in his memoirs, Whatever it takes, that the Labor Party had long worked out long ago that only about one per cent of the farmers will ever vote for Labor and, therefore, their cabinet decisions were undertaken accordingly. That is exactly what we are seeing here tonight—that the rural and regional people are being cheated by Labor because they do not see any purpose or any use in the rural and regional people because they just do not vote for them. That analysis has been carried out by the Rudd government, because to date, within 12 months—and I will not take the time to list the achievements of bush bashing, of farmer hating—the Rudd government has outdone the Hawke-Keating government when it comes to running down the rural and regional areas. This is a prime example. Tonight I was pleased to hear the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Senator Minchin, say that, on the re-election of a coalition government, this fund would be re-established. The rural and regional people will remember that.

Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise briefly to summarise the Greens’ position on this—in particular, our deep disappointment to see the Liberal Party backing down on the amendments about the joint committee to assess the expenditure of these funds. That was really something that we could have put through tonight.

I will speak just briefly about the Communications Fund. I have a great deal of sympathy for the position that the Nationals have found themselves in. A commitment was made as a consequence of the third stage of the privatisation of Telstra to put aside a fund that would essentially be paying for rural and regional telecommunications in perpetuity. They are quite correct to point out that nothing that is in the current request for proposals guarantees any kind of quarantining of the $4.7 billion worth of funding for the communities that we are all very concerned about, where telecommunications are extremely patchy. In some places, you cannot even get dial-up, let alone broadband. There is nothing in the request for proposals that says that all Australians will be getting this kind of coverage. In fact, the bid that Telstra has put in has not even got to the 98 per cent benchmark that the government set in the RFP. They have said, ‘Maybe 80 or 90 per cent—take it or leave it.’ We all know who would be left out of that proposal.

What we are left with, essentially, are the consequences of the privatisation of an essential service. It was extraordinary to hear Senator McGauran standing up and celebrating having achieved all their goals, because we took a national carrier with a universal service obligation, a public utility regulated by parliament, and we turned it into an aggressive, vertically integrated corporation that is looking after the interests of its shareholders before it is looking after the public interest. Telstra has said to the Australian community, ‘We will not be making these investments into rural and regional communities, because the investment does not stack up.’ A public utility does not necessarily have to do that. So we are stuck with the consequences of this privatisation.

I want to talk briefly about the Communications Fund and where that would be leaving us were it to be left where it is. There is a Communications Fund of $2 billion in perpetuity, of which we would be taking off about $100 million a year, for rural and regional telecommunications. It has been estimated that to roll out the national broadband network on any decent scale will cost about $10 billion—half from the federal government and half from somewhere else. At the rate of $100 million per year—which, pro rata for my state of Western Australia, would be the equivalent of about $10 million a year—it will take about 100 years to reach the scale of the investment that has been proposed to roll out the national broadband network on any reasonable scale. That is why we are not supporting the amendment to quarantine the $2 billion and to keep the Communications Fund as it is. Essentially, that blows 50 per cent out of the Commonwealth funding for the national broadband network as it currently stands, and the Communications Fund as it is does not achieve the function that the Nationals are trying to achieve. A hundred million dollars a year at that rate is quite simply not going to provide us with the services that we are looking for.

The Greens believe that the national broadband network should be rolled in from the edges, not rolled out from the metropolitan markets where people are already well served. That is, I think, going to be the main game: watching where the request for proposals goes and making absolutely certain that the government holds the line and does not accept any weakening of the minimum target of 98 per cent, making sure that broadband really is for all Australians. I am afraid that I do not believe at this late stage that cutting the national broadband network Commonwealth funding in half is a way of achieving that.

Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I suppose what tonight reinforces is this statement: when they agreed to Telstra being sold, the Nationals sold out the bush. They were sold a pup of some fund by the Liberal Party. All of a sudden now, it is gone. I will be voting, as I voted today, to support and look after the bush through the Communications Fund, but it was faulty to start with. Family First opposed the full sale of Telstra. Family First said at the time that the Nationals sold out the bush when they agreed to sell the rest of Telstra. There are no guarantees once you let it go like that, and tonight has proved it for sure. They have got themselves to blame for the mess they have ended up with. To be frank, they sold out the bush when they sold the rest of Telstra.

Telstra and telecommunications is not just a business; it is also an essential service. It made sense to keep some of it in the public hands. That would have provided the protection for those people who live out in the bush and in the regional areas, where there is no or little competition. In the city, I get people knocking on my door all the time offering competition. They are not out there with the farmers. The Nationals sold those people out when they sold the rest of Telstra. They have themselves to blame. I will not be changing my vote. I am very surprised that the Liberals have changed theirs—very surprised.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will just make a few remarks in response. I think it is appropriate to start with Senator Xenophon’s quote from Hugh Mackay when he referred to the culture of broken promises. The position of this Labor government is that we are voting tonight to maintain our election promise. We went to the Australian people committing ourselves to transferring $2 billion from the Communications Fund in order to provide up to $4.7 billion for a national broadband network. We made that promise at the last election, and if there is anything that senators should remember it is this: we have a Prime Minister who is determined to uphold every election promise that we took the Australian people. I challenge you to name one election commitment that the leader of the Labor Party, Kevin Rudd, gave that he has not delivered. This was an election promise.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I did not interject on your contribution; I listened with respect. The reality is that your policy as presented at the last election failed the test of the Australian people. Our policy passed the test. When you talk about breach of trust and your disgust, remember this: the Australian people voted for this policy, the Australian people voted for the Australian Labor Party and the Australian people voted for a Prime Minister who was expected to deliver on every promise he made on behalf of the Labor Party, and he is going to do that.

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Heffernan, are you seeking the call? Do you have a point of order?

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to make a contribution, and if it has to be by way of a point of order I will. The point that the government—

The Temporary Chairman:

Senator Heffernan—

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will make the point of order. The point of order is that more people live in the Western Suburbs of Sydney than in all of rural Australia. This is completely ignoring the needs of rural Australia because they do not count politically to this government.

The Temporary Chairman:

Senator Heffernan, that is not a point of order.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think it is important to remind the chamber of Senator Xenophon’s quote from Hugh Mackay, because I utterly agree with him. If there is one thing that the Prime Minister of this country, Kevin Rudd, is determined to do it is to change that culture of broken promises. That is why we are here tonight fighting for our election commitment—the promise we made at the last election. I want to congratulate Senator Ludlam in particular. I think his observations about the outcome of the current Communications Fund—the $100 million a year—were spot on. I think his observations about the dribbling out of $100 million a year and its relative ineffectiveness at dealing with the issues that confront the bush and regional Australia were spot on. I congratulate you, Senator, because you are right.

When you hear the Nationals, you would think that they were the only people who live in rural and regional Australia. Well, I live in regional Australia. I live in a little community which only had mobile phones connected two years ago. I live in a little community of 500 where our broadband speeds are a disgrace. You put yourselves up as the martyrs of the bush, but you are not the only people in this chamber who care about these issues. It is because we care about these issues that we made a commitment at the last election for a national broadband network. We made a commitment to fund it using $2 billion plus with the $2 billion from the Communications Fund. We made that election commitment because of our determination to deliver for all Australians, but in particular for people who live in rural and regional Australia.

Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Joyce interjecting—

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I disagree with your analysis. It suits your critique, but it is too early to be condemning the outcome of the NBN process, which has only just begun. As I pointed out earlier today, we will have another debate on another occasion with legislation around the establishment of the NBN.

Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This century?

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I listened in silence to you and I realise that the hour is late, but I do intend to respond in a considered way to the points that are made.

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

Madam Temporary Chairman, I rise on a point of order. The honourable minister should respond through the chair.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. I will respond through the chair. There are three broad criticisms that have been put forward by a range of senators. The first set of criticisms is in respect of the transfer of the $2 billion from the Communications Fund, and the allegations about breach of trust, breach of promise et cetera are discussed. As I have pointed out, this Labor government is determined to deliver on this election promise. We gave that commitment to the Australian people, and they trust us to deliver on it. That is our perspective. You are entitled to your perspective. I think the National Party is entitled to feel a little bit miffed about what happened with the privatisation of Telstra those years ago. They cannot say they were not warned at the time. I can remember the debates about the difficulties the National Party would confront down the track by agreeing to the privatisation of Telstra and about minimising the difficulties and the outcomes that we are debating tonight. Senator Fielding is spot-on in his critique of the National Party in this regard, but the National Party made a decision at the time to go along with it. That was the National Party’s call. We are going to deliver on our election promise.

In terms of the NBN, it is too early to be condemning the outcome of a process that has only just begun. You can make your judgements and critiques about success or otherwise, but I believe it will be successful.

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Unaffordable and undeliverable!

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Minchin had some gall to mention tonight that the administration costs have doubled from $10 million to $20 million. That is his allegation; I have not checked it. But let us assume Senator Minchin is right. I can well remember the cost of privatising Telstra. It was in the hundreds of millions of dollars in consultancy fees and legal fees. The largess that was doled out on the privatisation of Telstra was amazing.

Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Minchin interjecting—

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator, the minister has the call.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Through you, Chair: I listened to you with respect. I did not interject. I am entitled to respond in a considered way to at least some of the points that have been made. It is a touch hypocritical to talk about a $20 million administration process when we looked at the hundreds of millions of dollars in costs associated with your privatisation.

The third set of issues relates to the range of amendments that have been added to the oversight, transparency and accountability process. I want to make the fundamental point—and I made it earlier today—that we have set up a process of independent assessment for projects that will flow as a consequence of the Building Australia Fund. We have set up an independent, transparent assessment process far more ethical, far more accountable and far more transparent than anything the previous Liberal-National coalition did for any of the expenditure programs that they oversaw in government. What we had tonight and earlier this afternoon—

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senators, we are trying to hear the debate here, so we would appreciate your discussion perhaps occurring outside.

Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Superannuation and Corporate Law) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If they believe that a Labor minister or Labor government is going to sit back and not respond in a considered way to a whole raft of allegations, some of them false and some of them hypocritical, they have another think coming. I will respond in a considered way. I am just about to conclude my remarks.

We then saw passed this afternoon a whole raft of alleged accountability amendments, which ranged between every individual minister reporting to parliament on the projects, a new joint parliamentary committee, and oversight and examination by the Productivity Commission. I was not jesting when I remarked that this process that was proposed by amendment—the bureaucracy and red tape assessment that was being proposed by the Liberal-National coalition and, to some extent, the Greens—was somewhat comparable to Soviet Russia. I stand by the comment that this Labor government will not accept that host of amendments, because we believe they are inappropriate and that the independent, transparent assessment process that we have set up is one of rigour. It is certainly superior to that which we had under the previous government with respect to any of their projects.

For the reasons I have outlined, I reject a whole range of the accusations, many of them false and many of them hypocritical. We got a lecture from Senator McGauran about trust on this issue, yet he jumped political parties. He did not resign from a political party when he decided to change. In switching to the Liberal Party he breached the fundamental trust he gave to the National Party. That is what I call a breach of trust. If you want to change parties, resign and put yourself before the Australian people. I will not accept a lecture from Senator McGauran about breach of trust on this issue. Unfortunately he is not here, but I still would have said it if he were. For those reasons, we do not support the amendments.

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to make a few remarks in addition to those of my colleague Senator Ludlam and to indicate to the Senate that I will be seeking to move clauses (1), (39), (44), (45), (49), (50), (70), (71) and (78) together. They are the clauses which cover the proposal which was jointly agreed by the coalition and the Greens to set up a joint parliamentary committee to oversee the spending of amounts of $50 million or more and which required the recommendations of the advisory bodies to be laid on the table of the parliament so that the parliament could scrutinise them and know what the recommendations of the advisory bodies were. The advantage of that is that then, if the government chose not to take that advice, the community would be able to see that it was a political decision. Government is absolutely able to make political decisions—that is what they are elected to do—but the community has a right to know what the advisory body has advised and why they advised it. If they make a different decision, the community has the ability to scrutinise that.

It was our grave concern that we heard that Minister Albanese wants more ministerial discretion, to have the power to make the decisions. I noticed in the reasons coming back from the House of Representatives that the argument is that the disclosure of advice from Infrastructure Australia and other advisory boards is not supported because there is already enough rigour and transparency. The reasons then go on and say:

... these amendments could result in commercial in confidence information being disclosed, which could affect how applicants participate.

That terrifies me because it simply says it will all be kept secret and you will not be able to get access to what the advisory committees recommend, the community will not be able to scrutinise it and, whereas before we had a system of public accounts committees so that the parliament could oversee the disbursement of large sums of public money, now we are not going to have that. The people who will know why and how this is to be done are not elected to the parliament. They will be appointed by the government and they will be people whom the government deems to be suitable. We all know what happens with government appointed advisory committees: the government will appoint people to those and make sure they have a majority on those committees.

This is about all of the concerns we have about the issues that are important to Australia being taken into account, the issues we have about prioritising the recommendations and the issues about transparency. Senator Sherry said the Rudd government is not breaking any election promises, but the Prime Minister said that the Rudd government would be a government which improved transparency. Refusing to have a joint committee to oversee the disbursement of money where it is in excess of $50 million on any project is, to me, a refusal to have scrutiny and a refusal to have transparency. The Greens will be insisting on that set of amendments which pertains to the setting up of the joint committee and the requirement that the advisory bodies lay on the table the recommendations they made to the minister and the documentation on which they based those recommendations.

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There are a few things that ought to be put on the record here tonight. For a start, this is a great act of treachery for rural Australia. I might point out that there is not a single, solitary soul in the government in this parliament who lives and/or makes a living in the bush. There is no-one.

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That’s rubbish.

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is not a soul. Tell me who it is, if you think that is rubbish. Who lives and makes a living in the bush? No-one. There is no-one in this parliament who lives and makes a living in the bush. You wouldn’t know shit from clay, as they say in the bush.

Trish Crossin (NT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Heffernan, I need to ask you to withdraw that. It is very unparliamentary.

Bill Heffernan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is withdrawn. So that is the background of the government. There are more people that live in the western suburbs of Sydney than in all of rural Australia. All but 12½ per cent of the people in New South Wales live in Sydney, Wollongong and Newcastle. So politically they are important, and traditionally that is where this government gets its support in this parliament. So they, the bush, do not count politically. Tonight is a demonstration that they do not count.

We sold Telstra, and there was a lot of anguish in the bush about the sale of Telstra, but we sold it at the top of the market. The last sale was as the market was falling, and we got 50-odd billion dollars. If we were trying to sell it now, it would not sell. If we had not sold it and got the $50 billion—and I remind Senator Sherry about his bush credentials—this government would be in serious financial trouble. It has been a great assistance to the government in Australia to get that $50 billion at the top of the market. If you were selling it today, you might get $10 billion. So we picked the top of the market.

This government has taken $20 million out of the Northern Development Taskforce and put it away. This today says to me that not only are you fellows selling out the government but you would rob your mothers’ graves if you thought there was anything in the coffins to support the government. You are going to try and buy your way back into government, and that is what this is an exercise in. This money was ring-fenced and protected for all time as a sovereign fund to protect the integrity of the future development of the bush in terms of this sort of infrastructure. What you have done today is take the cheap, easy and lousy way out of that. There was absolutely no need to knock off this $2 billion, absolutely none. It was in cash in 30-day accounts in a bank somewhere. It is exactly the same as the New South Wales government the other day reprehensibly telling people that they have got to pay for donated blood, to save $8 million in their budget, at the same time as they are paying $34 million for water at Tandou that does not exist. This is the same crazy logic.

Can I say to the bush: you do not count if this goes through. You do not count. This government does not care. You blokes in the government can pretend all you like that you know what the bush is. All you know about the bush is the two trees in your backyard in town. That is about all you know about the bush. I think it is a disgrace. I think we ought to abandon this chamber as a symbol of our disgust at the way you have absolutely held the bush to ransom and ambushed this parliament with this proposition just to save your own skins. It is damn disgrace and, as I say, the next thing we know you will be digging up your mothers’ bloomin’ coffins to get anything that is left in them to keep you in government.

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

The big problem here tonight is that Telstra was sold. It should never have been sold—at the top of the market or the bottom of the market. It was a magnificent and important national asset which was under the direction and control of this parliament, and when the coalition sold it we lost that direction, that control and that opportunity, and we will not get it back.

The problem here tonight is not with the National Party; it is with the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party has decided to concede to the government for the third time this week. It did so on the water bill and the north-south pipeline. It did so on the education bill. And it is doing so tonight on this piece of legislation. There is a consistency to this, which is that, for some reason that is not quite spoken, the leaders in the Turnbull Liberal Party have decided not to create a difficulty in the run to the period between now and when we resume parliament next year. There is great aggression and aggrievement between the coalition partners here tonight, and that is something for the National Party and the Liberal Party to sort out, but the difficulty here tonight, if you want to pin it, is very much with the Liberal Party itself. It led the sale of Telstra and tonight it is leading the backdown on this defence of the Communications Fund, which the National Party wanted to protect so stoically but cannot do anything about. That is something that the National Party is going to have to think about.

The harm was done here when the Liberal Party and the National Party got the numbers to control the Senate. If that had not happened, we would not be in this position tonight. Whatever is going on in the Liberal Party, it has backed off to the Rudd government tonight. It has not stood its ground. That is the third time this week, and it is not a good look for an opposition. I have to feel sorry for the National Party, which finds itself left like a shag on a rock by its Liberal Party partners. If that is a coalition, the dictionary has a new definition. It is a tragedy that we are in this position, late at night, because the Howard government sold Telstra. It should never have done it. When it did so, it did great damage to Australia. We have to find real ways of ensuring that the bush gets a much better deal on telecommunications in the coming years.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the committee does not insist on amendments Nos (3), (4), (5), (8) and (10) to (13).

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question now is that the Senate not insist on amendments (1), (39), (44), (45), (49), (50), (70), (71) and (78).

Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have already spoken on this. I will just explain to the chamber that these clauses are the package of clauses that were jointly supported by the coalition and the Greens. They pertain to the establishment of a joint house committee to oversee the disbursement of the funds and to insist that the recommendations of the advisory bodies be laid on the table of the parliament to facilitate that oversight.

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

I would recognise that there are five Liberals here. From where I am, there are two on the left-hand side of the chamber and two on the right, three up the back and some 20 to 30 outside. There is a complete disarray here. This is an important oversight measure that the Greens are moving here, to keep an oversight, as Senator Milne explained, on the expenditure of this infrastructure fund. It is a gargantuan amount of public money and parliament should have particular scrutiny of it. I would call upon the Liberals to come back in here and support this oversight amendment. It was actually sponsored by them. It will not delay this legislation. There is no way the government will hold up this infrastructure legislation because some parliamentary oversight has been put to the chair. I have never ever seen such disarray from one of the major parties in this chamber as we are seeing right now. I cannot fathom what it is that has occurred with the Liberal Party here tonight, but it is enormously destructive. I say to the Liberal Party that they should come back in here and regain some ground by supporting this sensible oversight in the government’s legislation in the interests of this nation. Otherwise, the impression one gets is that in these last two weeks the Turnbull administration decided it would capitulate to everything that the government put forward. That is not healthy for democracy, it is not healthy for a bicameral system and it certainly is not healthy for the coalition.

I just say to the Liberals, the majority of whom are back in their rooms listening to this, those who have vacated the chamber, those who have vacated their responsibility to be voting in here: come back in here and vote for this oversight. That is my message as to this Liberal disarray that we are seeing here tonight. They should at least come back in here and regain some of the authority, some of their responsibility and obligation to the voters, which we have just seen abandoned due to their absence from this chamber.

Steve Fielding (Victoria, Family First Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Perhaps I can answer Senator Brown’s question: perhaps it is a bit late at night. Perhaps that is the reason why they are not here. It is important to have the oversight provided by this motion and Family First will be supporting it.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that amendments (1), (39), (44), (45), (49), (50), (70), (71) and (78) not be insisted on.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question now is that the remainder of the amendments not be insisted upon.

Question agreed to.

Resolution reported; report adopted.