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

I can indicate that I voted for a suspension of standing orders this morning because I believe that it is an important issue that we have a debate as to whether standing orders should be suspended. I also wanted to hear the debate and the arguments from all sides in relation to the reasons why the bills that Senator Parry said should be dealt with prior to any other legislation should be so dealt with. I think it is fair to say that, in respect of the matters raised in Senator Parry’s motion, two of those bills are currently in the Senate and the rest are not. As I understand it, the Rural Adjustment Amendment Bill and the Tax Laws Amendment (2009 Budget Measures No. 1) Bill are the two bills currently before the Senate and the other bills are in the House. That does not mean that they are not urgent and it does not mean that they ought to be dealt with. I think it is incumbent upon the government to ensure that the business of the Senate runs smoothly. Obviously that requires the cooperation of all in the chamber, and that is the way this place works—and I think that is an important factor that needs to be considered.

It would be foolish not to consider the context of these bills, and that relates to the government’s CPRS legislation. It is my view that that is the most important piece of legislation this parliament has ever seen in terms of its economic impact, as well as, of course, its environmental impact, on this nation. Unless we get the policy framework and the legislation right, we will end up with a bad piece of policy with significant economic impact but little environmental benefit. That is just my view of the bills in their current form. The government knows my position on that, as do my other colleagues.

It is my view in relation to the CPRS bills that there should not be a vote taking place in the absence of comprehensive modelling of alternative schemes. One of the outcomes—not a majority outcome—from the Senate inquiries into this was that there should be modelling of alternative schemes. I see that modelling as important in the context of framing the debate, giving an opportunity for amendments to be filed and also for having a debate about what the appropriate targets are for the CPRS bills. I agree with the Greens. I do not believe that the targets are adequate. The targets are too heavily conditional. I think that is, in part, a function of the design of the current CPRS.

I note the Minister for Climate Change and Water’s comments in the chamber earlier today that sufficient details about alternatives were part of the government’s green paper on this bill. With the greatest respect to the minister, what struck me about the green paper was what little detail about alternative schemes was included. There certainly was not any economic modelling. There certainly was not a robust examination of how these alternative schemes could be dealt with. On my reading, there was only enough detail of alternative schemes to dismiss them but not enough for the reader to adequately assess them. I think that is a key feature. I cannot help feeling that the government is acting a bit like a used car salesman who will only let you test drive one car and then insists on you buying it without test driving any other models. My perspective in relation to the CPRS bills is that I am not buying. I want to look at other models, I want them to be considered properly and I want there to be a debate about what is an adequate target for greenhouse gas abatement.

I also appreciate how unusual it is for the business of the Senate to be taken out of the government’s hands. It is not unprecedented, as I understand it, but it is also quite unusual. I do not think it is something that any of us should do lightly and it is certainly not something I would vote for without good reason. I think it is fair to say that being a crossbench Independent means you regularly get caught in the battle between the government and the opposition. That is the job. Sometimes it is appropriate and necessary to pick a side. In this instance, I want to give the government and the opposition an opportunity to sort out the business of the house. But, having indicated this, I think that it is important that the government and the opposition work hard to work out a way forward. To give them an opportunity to do so, I will not support the opposition’s motion yet—and I emphasise ‘yet’. If there is no movement by either side or by both sides I will not rule out supporting the opposition’s motion as early as tomorrow.

I also want to put this in the context of my views about having an adequate, fulsome and robust debate about the CPRS legislation. I do not think it is reasonable that we are required to vote on the second reading of these bills given that the comprehensive inquiries into this bill only handed down their reports last week. Recommendations were made not by a majority of senators but by coalition senators and me in relation to modelling alternative scheme designs. This would have a considerable impact on the shape of the debate in the committee stage but also on whether senators would be inclined to support the second reading of the bill in the absence of an alternative approach. I think it is unreasonable for those who are reluctant to support this bill to not have the opportunity to look at an alternative approach. I think that is important.

I do not think it is appropriate at this stage to support the opposition’s motion. I do have very significant concerns about the way the business of the house will be run in the next three to four days—in particular, in the context of getting through a number of what the government have made clear are urgent bills with a number of imperatives to be passed for a variety of reasons. At the moment we do not seem to have an adequate schedule or an adequate indication as to when, in the context of the CPRS bills, those bills would be slotted in.

The government, the opposition and my crossbench colleagues all know what my position is. I have been completely upfront with all my colleagues as to what my position is in relation to this. I believe it is important that we work further on the business of the house. I do not want to take the business of the house outside of the government’s hands at this stage, but the government also knows that I think the nature and policy imperatives of the CPRS bills are critical and that it is important to have an emissions trading scheme that is effective, that delivers environmental outcomes and that does so in a way that is economically responsible. That is the main game. That is something that we need to be focusing on. I do not believe that ramming through a vote on the CPRS bills’ second reading stage this week would achieve that. At this stage, I cannot support the opposition’s motion but I may well be amenable to doing so either tomorrow or on Wednesday morning.

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

I move:

Omit all words after “That”, substitute:

(1) On Tuesday, 23 June 2009:

(a)

the hours of meeting shall be 12.30 pm to 6.30 pm, and 7 pm to midnight;

(b)

the routine of business from 7 pm shall be government business only; and

(c)

the Senate shall adjourn without any question being put.

(2) On Thursday, 25 June 2009:

(a)

the hours of meeting shall be 9.30 am to 6.30 pm, and 7 pm to adjournment;

(b)

the routine of business from 12.45 pm till not later than 2 pm, and from 3.45 pm shall be government business only;

(c)

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;

(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:

Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 and related bills

Appropriation (Parliamentary Departments) Bill (No. 1) 2009-2010 and 2 related bills

Car Dealership Financing Guarantee Appropriation Bill 2009

Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Bill 2009 and related bills

Commonwealth Electoral Amendment (Political Donations and Other Measures) Bill 2009

Customs Tariff Amendment (2009 Measures No. 1) Bill 2009 [No. 2] and the Excise Tariff Amendment (2009 Measures No. 1) Bill 2009 [No. 2] (subject to introduction)

Disability Discrimination and Other Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2008

Federal Court of Australia Amendment (Criminal Jurisdiction) Bill 2008

Health Workforce Australia Bill 2009

Law and Justice (Cross Border and Other Amendments) Bill 2009

Migration Amendment (Abolishing Detention Debt) Bill 2009

Migration Amendment (Protection of Identifying Information) Bill 2009

National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Amendment Bill 2009

Native Title Amendment Bill 2009

Private Health Insurance Legislation Amendment Bill 2009

Rural Adjustment Amendment Bill 2009

Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Pension Reform and Other 2009 Budget Measures) Bill 2009

Tax Laws Amendment (2009 Budget Measures No. 1) Bill 2009.

There are some simple rules in this place. Those simple rules really rely on the cooperation of both sides to actually make this place work. The principles are well known and enunciated often in this place. You do need cooperation from all senators within this place to make it work. Part of that cooperation relies on the basic principle that the government manages the government’s program. To do otherwise creates the position where we now have the opposition suggesting a list of bills. Some of those are currently in the House, some of them are in committee and of course there is no ability to bring them on in the appropriate order at the appropriate time to be dealt with in the appropriate way in this place. I do not think we have the opposition seriously trying to manage the Senate. What we have, I think, is the opposition trying to filibuster.

The opposition may want to disassociate itself from the remarks of Senator Joyce. Senator Joyce is perhaps the only honest senator in terms of being able to state his views on the record in this place about what he thinks. He thinks this whole debate should be put off and not be dealt with—not because of the merits of it but because he does not like the scheme. The Senate is the appropriate place, with the numbers within this place, for a debate to be had and for that to be tested. What we have, in effect, is the opposition picking up their bat and ball and going home. They are saying, ‘I don’t want to play here in relation to the legislation. I want to delay, delay and delay.’ That is all we are receiving from the opposition in respect of this program. What is usual is for us to construct a program to deal with the legislation, and we did that last Monday week. It was well known to the opposition, to the minor parties and to the Independents what the bills that the government required were. They were on the list and they were put out for those parties to understand.

Notwithstanding the opposition’s inability to agree to that list, we did find ourselves in the fortunate position of covering all the bills for last week. We did, in fact, conclude all the relevant bills we needed to work through. We had indicated that we would start the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme legislation this week and allow for sufficient hours to deal with second reading speeches. That is not unusual. There is a total of 18 packages of legislation. That is not unusual for a last week before a winter break. It is not unusual to find on that list a number of bills that might be regarded as noncontroversial and, through argument, some might fall off. But, in this instance, we have put our plan forward well and truly in advance and we have said that we would deal with the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. It is not unusual to allow, on Tuesday night, an open-ended second reading debate to allow the debate to be finalised. That would be the normal course of events in this place, but the opposition have chosen not to take the normal course of events. The opposition have chosen to not deal with the legislation at all. In fact, the opposition have shown by their very actions today that you could only characterise it as delay upon delay.

It is not even an excuse, because the excuse is ‘We’ll give you some bills.’ That is their response to these things. What we now have from the opposition is high farce. High farce is being perpetrated by the opposition by their saying, ‘We will give you some bills but not the legislative program that the government has put out.’ It is a ruse, quite frankly. It is a dry ruse, because the opposition are not even serious in relation to those bills. If they were, they would include the other bills that are priority bills in the Senate that have been on our program for some time.

The opposition might argue that they do not want to sit late or that they do not want to sit additional hours. This is a matter that is usual—to deal with the legislative program as it is and not to simply say, ‘I feel a bit tired. I don’t really want to deal with it.’ Unfortunately, we are in a position where it is not an unusual number of bills to deal with. We have had many more in other circumstances. If you look at the way the coalition has dealt with it, they have ensured that the program cannot work. In fact, we are now spending some time arguing about our program, when we would be much better getting on with the business of government and having the debate on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme and dealing with the legislative program as promulgated. To do otherwise is to not allow the government to manage its program. Perhaps the opposition would like also to deal with how bills will come on, in what order they will come on, and when we would bring them on. It seems to me a really unusual circumstance for the opposition to take upon themselves the mantle of how to manage the program. They might argue that the program has not been well managed. They have certainly not assisted in ensuring that it can be dealt with in an appropriate way.

In addition, we know that this place works on the basis that you can gain agreement. That is why we have leaders and whips to deal with the program. That is why we construct a program around a moderate number of bills to be dealt with during a week. I think the opposition are, quite frankly, reluctant brides. They are reluctant to come to the table to deal with the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme at all, and they are dragging the Independent and other minor parties with them—except the Greens, as I understand it. It is a blatant disregard that they are now perpetrating upon this Senate. It is a disregard of how this place works. In fact, their motion is flawed, and they know it is flawed. It is flawed in two ways. Firstly, it tries to deal with the legislative program as if the opposition were in government. Secondly, it does not include an hours motion as to how we will deal with it. That is the real ruse. It does not include an hours motion as to how we will deal with these bills to conclusion by the end of this week. Unless you have an agreement to deal with these bills in an orderly fashion, you will not get to them. The opposition know that, and they are perpetrating that fraud upon the parliament by saying, ‘We will not deal with these bills in any other order than the way we have put them forward, and we will deal with only these bills.’ They are holding this place to ransom. It is not a right. It should not be done. They should understand that, quite frankly, and I would suggest that they follow the usual principles in this place.

I have moved an amendment to give you the second part of the leg that is missing—that is, the hours motion that should have been agreed to at the beginning of last week. This is the motion that would normally be agreed to, to deal with the program according to the way the system works. Because of the opposition’s inability to agree to that, I am taking the unprecedented step of saying, ‘This is the motion that should be agreed to.’ I am amending the motion to allow us to have sufficient hours to deal with the government’s program. Included within that list will be noncontroversial bills—priority bills that the government requires by close of business. I would ask the opposition and minor parties to support that position.

We will be in a position where we are unable to complete the program within the existing hours, and I therefore ask for additional hours to be able to deal with the bills. That may very well mean that we will sit on Thursday night and Friday to deal with the bills. It is usual to then inform the parliament. That is why we do this by agreement rather than have this outrageous debate today. We do it so that we can give certainty to senators as to what hours they are likely to work, what hours they will then work between now and Friday, what hours they will have to be in this place and what bills they will likely deal with. That is why we usually do it by agreement.

We are now in a position where, because of the obstinacy of the opposition, we are forced to schedule the legislation without their cooperation and without their agreement and take what I regard as the sad step of amending the motion to include the hours that you did not include in the first place so that we can achieve the government’s program by the end of the week. The opposition will, I suspect, take a position where they will not agree. That is a sad indictment of their position because their motion on its own does not include hours. It is, quite frankly and in truth, a filibuster, and it would be much easier for you to admit that and get on with the business of filibustering than taking these extraordinary steps that you are now pretending to hide behind. I will not prolong the debate any longer. I am simply going to ask the Senate to pass the amendment to the motion moved by Senator Parry.

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

Mr Acting Deputy President, we now have an amendment before the chamber and I seek your guidance as to whether we may speak to that amendment.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the amendment moved by Senator Ludwig be agreed to; so you can, Senator Bob Brown.

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

Thank you. I will be very brief. The Greens will not be supporting that amendment. We have had no consultation with the government about sitting until midnight tomorrow night, let alone sitting potentially from Thursday until Saturday or Sunday without a break. I have to say to the government that if it wants to extend sitting hours to meet the crush of business—because we do not sit often enough in this place—it should consult. We are not going to be ambushed with a motion like that, any more than we will be by the opposition’s motion from this morning. So we will not be supporting that amendment.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The opposition will certainly not be supporting the amendment to the motion. Last Monday Senator Ludwig tried to sneak into the chamber a variation of hours, for which we denied leave. I concur with Senator Bob Brown. There has been no discussion about these hours today and we will certainly not be supporting the amendment.

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

I quite clearly indicated what my position was a few minutes ago. I thought I was handing the government an olive branch, but instead they have grabbed it and tried to whack me and my crossbench colleagues over the head with it. That is what they have done. There has been no consultation. It is an ambush. In good faith I indicated that I would not be supporting the opposition’s motion on the basis that there should be a chance for the business of the House to be dealt with in an orderly fashion, for there to be time to negotiate and discuss it further. The government, the opposition and my crossbench colleagues know very well what my attitude is to a vote on the CPRS Bill and the reasons for that and I do not think anyone could reasonably say that is filibustering. I regret Senator Joyce’s statements about that, but I will not be supporting this amendment to the motion, nor will I support the original motion.

Question negatived.

Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I gather there are no other speakers in the chamber, so I am happy to sum up the debate. First of all, I will set out the coalition’s case again. When this parliament commenced, sitting hours were very minimal, sitting weeks were very minimal, and the government has been in constant disarray with its program. This year it has continued with that disarray, that disorganisation, and as recently as last week when meeting with the government it indicated to us the bills it regarded as urgent and the bills it regarded as highly desirable. We were quite surprised then when on Thursday of last week we saw the order of business for today was going to be the CPRS bills first without any of the legislation that the government considered as being urgent. So we felt compelled today to ensure that the urgent matters were dealt with. We were astonished that the government would not allow its budget measures through prior to considering a piece of legislation that does not come into effect until the year 2012, and now we have to consider legislation that has a start-up date so far in the future without guaranteeing and assuring the public of this country that the legislation concerning finance and important budget measures, the appropriations bills, were not going to be passed. There was no guarantee. We could have risen on Thursday without any guarantee of these bills having even been considered or passed. To me that was reckless behaviour, so we as an opposition decided to assist the government with that process, clearly stating that these bills should be considered first, prior to the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme legislation. We are not saying we are not going to debate the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme suite of legislation. That will come up but will come up later this week, and we want to commence that debate. That is not an issue. But we do not want to commence that debate until the urgent matters that this country needs to have considered are considered by this chamber and passed.

On the legislation that Senator Ludwig indicated is not here, there are two bills already here. Other bills are scheduled to come up this week. These bills could have been here a lot earlier if the government in the House of Representatives had bothered to get them across in a timely fashion. Fancy leaving some of the most critical bills that a government deals with on a regular basis, on a financial year basis, until the last moment, leaving them until the last week that parliament is sitting before the 1 July commencement—not only that but also leaving them until the latter half of the last sitting week. That to me is irresponsible. This government needed to have those bills considered first.

We have stepped into the breach. We have assisted the government with this process by enabling those bills to be considered well and truly before we get into a lengthy, protracted debate on what will be an important matter that this Senate needs to consider after those urgent bills. We are simply restating the bills that the government have asked us to have considered as being urgent, and that is important for everyone to comprehend and understand.

I return to the contribution by Senator Evans. He, I might add, spoke for longer than I did, so the accusation of filibustering that he made is incorrect. We had an opportunity earlier today if we were going to filibuster. If we had had a filibustering arrangement, we could have spoken, when the Senate commenced at 12.30 pm, for 30 minutes just on the suspension motion. We did not. The motion was moved, I sat down and we had a vote. That saved 30 minutes of time, which has been the typical attitude that we on this side of the chamber have had. We have constantly given up time. We have constantly given up general business time that we could have had and dealt with very important issues in, we have constantly given up matters of public importance and we have facilitated the government in every way possible. Even as late as last week, on Monday evening we facilitated a non-urgent bill because the government were not ready with their program, and they came to us with cap in hand and asked: ‘Will you consider this legislation, even though it is not on our urgent list, because basically we have run out of legislation?’ We agreed.

We are constantly facilitating the government’s program, to the extent now that we have had to actually try and manage it for them today. Otherwise, there was a risk that these bills would never be considered. Senator Evans talked about the filibustering aspect. I spoke for fewer than 10 minutes. I had 20 minutes more for which I could have spoken. Senator Wong spoke for longer than I did. Senator Ludwig spoke for longer than I did. We had a brief contribution from the National Party, one from Senator Bob Brown and a very brief one from Senator Cormann. Senator Macdonald was also agitated into the debate by some issues that he thought were quite significant, and he raised those in a very exceptional way.

I also indicate that, I think, Senator Bob Brown—it may have been Senator Fielding—said that we should not be having legislation by exhaustion, and that is what happens when you extend hours. You end up having the legislation that we need to have discussed at a late hour of a night when we have considered many other bills, and it is just not the way to run legislation, especially important legislation. It is better to do it over a methodical and clear course of time that enables senators at least to be fresh for the debate and to keep up with the debate.

It has also been pointed out that we are the opposition, not the government. That is correct, and we are not doing this on our own. It takes a majority of the Senate to decide what the government’s business will be. We have moved a motion. We are going to ask the Senate to make a decision on that motion. If we fail, we fail. If we win then the consideration of legislation will go as we have asked in our motion. We have also left scope in that motion for the government to order which bills it wants to have before it out of that list and when it wants to bring them on in that list, providing they are brought on before the CPRS is debated.

We are very mindful of the government in this place arranging the order of business. However, when the incompetence gets to such a level as it has this year, when the sitting pattern is so minimal that we have not had enough weeks to consider legislation, a responsible opposition needs to step forward and say, ‘Okay, government of the day,’ especially after flagging it last week with you and flagging it many times in this place. I have got up on several occasions—and Hansard will bear me out—saying that the government cannot manage its own program. So we are assisting in that regard on this one occasion.

I say to Senator Ludwig through you, Acting Deputy President: we were reluctant to do so, because you obviously cannot achieve this on your own. We are trying to ensure that you are not caught at the end of this week without having vital legislation passed. Senator Ludwig said that there are simple rules under which the government runs the government program. Yes, it is very simple and, if only the government could run the government program, we would not need to step into the breach. We are very concerned that this is the last possible week and we are down to the last couple of days. Let us get the urgent stuff done first and then come back to the CPRS and debate it in a calm and rational manner, as the debate should progress.

In conclusion, I indicate that, if this vote fails now, I have already lodged a notice of motion with a slight variation to bring this on again and to ask that the government consider the urgent legislation. We will be discussing this with Senator Fielding and Senator Xenophon and hopefully encouraging support for that. If that is the case, we will not do it by way of contingency motion; it will be by way of notice of motion to have those matters considered. We do not want to waste time. We have demonstrated week in, week out, when we have been sitting that we do not filibuster these debates. I have demonstrated that already today. This is a serious matter of getting urgent legislation passed, and I cannot for the life of me understand why the government would not want its secure financial arrangements in place by 1 July.

Question put:

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