Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I table statements of reasons relating to the Fair Entitlements Guarantee Bill 2012 and the Fair Work Amendment (Transfer of Business) Bill 2012 and seek leave to have the statements incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The statemen t s read as follows—

STATEMENT OF REASONS FOR INTRODUCTION AND PASSAGE IN THE 2012 SPRING SITTINGS

FAIR ENTITLEMENTS GUARANTEE BILL

Purpose of the Bill

The bill creates a statutory scheme to replace the existing General Employee Entitlements and Redundancy Scheme (GEERS). GEERS is an administrative scheme that is governed by Operation Arrangements.

Reasons for Urgency

The bill requires passage in the 2012 Spring sittings as a public commitment has been made to have the Fair Entitlements Guarantee operational by the end of 2012.

STATEMENT OF REASONS FOR INTRODUCTION AND PASSAGE IN THE 2012 SPRING SITTINGS

FAIR WORK AMENDMENT (TRANSFER OF BUSINESS) BILL

Purpose of the Bill

The bill amends the transfer of business provisions of the Fair Work Act 2009 to protect the entitlements of state public sector employees in circumstances where a state government outsources functions or sells assets to a private sector employer who subsequently employs these employees.

Reasons for Urgency

In light of numerous state government announcements about public sector job cuts, there is potential in the near future for state outsourcing arrangements or asset sales to put at risk the terms and conditions of retrenched employees who are subsequently engaged by private sector employers in the national system to perform the same work. In this context, the Queensland Government recently legislated to override employment security provisions and limitations on the use of contractors in Queensland public sector agreements, which paves the way for outsourcing of public sector functions.

I move:

That the provisions of paragraphs (5) to (8) of standing order 111 not apply to the following bills, allowing them to be considered during this period of sittings:

Clean Energy Amendment (International Emissions Trading and Other Measures) Bill 2012

Clean Energy (Charges—Excise) Amendment Bill 2012

Clean Energy (Charges—Customs) Amendment Bill 2012

Excise Tariff Amendment (Per-tonne Carbon Price Equivalent) Bill 2012

Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas (Import Levy) Amendment (Per-tonne Carbon Price Equivalent) Bill 2012

Ozone Protection and Synthetic Greenhouse Gas (Manufacture Levy) Amendment (Per-tonne Carbon Price Equivalent) Bill 2012

Clean Energy (Unit Issue Charge—Auctions) Amendment Bill 2012

Fair Entitlements Guarantee Bill 2012

Fair Work Amendment (Transfer of Business) Bill 2012.

This is the second of three exemption motions that will be dealt with by the Senate today. This motion exempts three significant packages of bills requiring passage before the parliament rises at the end of the spring sittings. I appreciate that this is a relatively high number of bills in total that the government is seeking to exempt from the cut-off motion.

In part, the late introduction of bills has been due to overriding legislative priorities earlier in the sittings which have delayed introduction and consideration of other legislation. At short notice, the parliament has dealt with immigration determinations and a bill to enable the detailed assessment of commercial fishing activities. Both chambers have had debate on same-sex marriage. These important debates have disrupted time and resources that might have otherwise been allocated to some of the legislation that we are now considering in exemption motions.

The clean energy package needs to be dealt with this year. The Australian government accepts the expert advice of scientists that greenhouse gas emissions are contributing to a climate change and that such change presents an unacceptable risk to the environment and to the economy. This government has put a price on carbon, establishing a market to help our nation transition to a clean energy future.

The bills due to come before this chamber further help the establishment of a deep and liquid carbon market for Australian firms to trade in. Primarily, these bills concern the legislative changes required to facilitate linking to the European ETS, giving Australian businesses access to the European carbon permits. Providing certainty to access to both European and Kyoto units is important. The passage of these bills will assist with this end and allow for effective implementation of linking as soon as possible. It also helps to provide long-term certainty regarding the operation of the carbon pricing mechanism.

The world is acting and business want a carbon price, and this government is listening by implementing a carbon trading scheme, which the passage of these bills will assist. Australia is not going it alone. We are not acting first. Nor is it true that none of our trading partners are acting. It is time those opposite accepted the evidence. The exemption of this package should be supported by this chamber.

Further, the Fair Work Amendment (Transfer Of Business) Bill will provide important protections for the entitlements of certain state public sector employees moving into the national workplace relations system through the transfer of business. Given recent announcements by Queensland and New South Wales state governments to cut their workforces, it is important that these protections are in place as soon as possible. The Fair Entitlements Guarantee Bill will legislate the existing General Employee Entitlements and Redundancy Scheme and provide stronger protections for Australian workers who are adversely affected when their employer goes into liquidation through no fault of their own.

It is important that all three packages of bills in the motion are enacted into law this year and I recommend this exemption motion to the chamber.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The minister has given no reason that the Clean Energy Amendment(International Emissions Trading and Other Measures) Bill should be dealt with in a rush in the last week of the sitting of parliament. It is quite clear to everyone in this chamber and to everyone who might be listening to this debate that the Labor Party and the Greens want to get off the agenda any legislation, any bill and any discussion that deals with the carbon tax—the carbon tax that Prime Minister Gillard promised faithfully she would never introduce under a government she led.

In her brief comment, the Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations indicated that greenhouse gas emissions were the cause of climate change. I am sure greenhouse gas emissions have a part to play in the changing climate of the world—a changing climate that has gone on for millions of years. This legislation needs to be fully investigated.

We need to understand why we are linking ourselves to a European scheme when the facts and figures show China's usage of coal—and this is no criticism of China—will increase from some 1.2 billion tonnes a year in 2002 to some 7.5 billion tonnes per annum by 2015. You do not need to be a scientist to work out that that consumption of coal will enormously increase carbon emissions. While China is increasing its coal usage from 1.2 billion tonnes per annum to 7.5 billion tonnes per annum, Australia is introducing a carbon tax which puts up the cost of living and makes it very difficult for pensioners and people on fixed incomes to pay their electricity bills. For what results? Australia emits less than 1.4 per cent of carbon emissions.

The Labor Party policy, and the coalition policy, is to try to limit emissions by five per cent by 2020. But the Labor Party's proposals in all their documents show that carbon emissions in Australia will increase by 2020.

I do not have these figures before me, but it was to increase by something like 45 million tonnes. Just last week they upgraded their assessment to something like a 59-million-tonne increase by 2020. The Australian people are paying enormously for this through a carbon tax, and what difference is it going to make when you look at China?

The minister also erroneously told the chamber that all other governments were doing things. She mentioned the United States. Even since the presidential election President Obama has, on three separate occasions, indicated quite clearly to the American people that they will be going nowhere near a carbon tax or anything like it. The minister mentioned New Zealand. How dare the Labor Party compare the New Zealand scheme with the Australian scheme. The Australian scheme starts costing emissions at $23 per tonne. The New Zealand scheme costs emissions at A$1.11 per tonne. The Australian scheme is 20 times more expensive to Australian consumers than the New Zealand scheme is to New Zealand consumers.

We are not going to have the full opportunity of investigating and discussing this bill because, as Senator Fifield correctly said, you can bet London to a brick that next week we will have the guillotine applied by the Greens, as they always do, joining with the Labor Party in curtailing free speech in this chamber. I pause on this point to remind the Greens of when the Labor Party tried to guillotine them on some legislation that they were passionate about—did the coalition support Labor and guillotine the Greens? Perhaps we should have—it would have been in the Greens' best interests—but we did not. We allowed the Greens to have the full debating time because we believe this chamber is a chamber where people should be able to fully investigate all aspects of every bit of legislation. On that occasion the Greens voted with us to oppose the guillotine so the Greens could have their say. But what happens when these more important bills come? The Greens will do what they always do: join with their fellow left-wing ideologues in preventing free speech in this chamber.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You were just gagged by your own deputy president.

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

Order! Interjections are disorderly.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate interjections from Senator Hanson-Young. I would just like her to explain why it is so bad to guillotine legislation when you want to say something about a particular matter, yet when the majority of this chamber, in a party sense, wants to fully discuss bills that will add to everybody's cost of living you join with the Labor Party and guillotine the bills. It is typical of the hypocrisy and duplicity of a party which has no principles and no relevant policies, and which is stuck in the past of the communist revolution in the USSR.

Honourable senators interjecting—

Senator Hanson-Young laughs at that: perhaps she should go and ask her colleague Senator Rhiannon about the Communist Party of Russia. One thing I always say about Senator Rhiannon: she is true to her cause. She does not try to hide the fact that she admires the communist cause and that she has been a very active member of one of the groups supporting the Communist Party of Australia—or was it the other Communist Party? I am not quite sure. I disagree with Senator Rhiannon on most things, but I admire her because she sticks to her convictions and does not try, like the rest of the Greens Party, to be one thing to the public—that is, the cuddly koala party—but in fact be a social change party to take us all to the ultimate nanny state, where they and the Labor Party know better what suits me and my family than I and my family do.

Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But you, of course, oppose gay marriage.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sorry, that is not my family.

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

Order! Ignore the interjection, Senator Macdonald.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Labor Party and the Greens get together. We have just had a motion pass a little while ago to allow more time for government business, which we like to do. But every time the Labor Party and the Greens move these motions, the element they take the time from is a discussion we have in this chamber called government documents.

There are, on average, no less than a dozen government papers tabled in this Senate every day. They cover the whole spectrum of government activities: the annual report of every department; and the reports of all of the thousands of government agencies. It gives this chamber, as representative of the Australian people, the opportunity to look through those reports, question the government on them and point out some obvious flaws. But the government does not like that because it hates scrutiny of its departments and of its agencies. So whenever it needs to save a bit of time what does the government do? It gets rid of government documents and thereby curtails the opportunity of this Senate to look into the literally hundreds of thousands of decisions made by the government that can only be looked at in this chamber.

I have diverted myself from the motion before the chair; I return to the Clean Energy Amendment (International Emissions Trading and Other Measures) Bill.

Normally—again, I explain this for those who are listening and might not fully understand what we are talking about—there is a process in the Senate. This process was introduced many years ago by the coalition parties, at that time supported by the Democrats—the Greens were not around and they will not be around in a couple of years either—and the Labor Party. This process was about making sure that important bills that came through this chamber had the proper scrutiny. The rule was—and I am paraphrasing it—you would bring in a bill in one session of parliament and would not deal with it in full debate until the next session. That gave senators the opportunity to look into the full aspects. It gave all those people who might be affected by these bills the opportunity to look at them and to make submissions. It also gave the Senate the opportunity to do what it does so very well—that is, to conduct inquiries into bits of legislation whereby you advertise, get people in to give evidence, consider that evidence and make reports. That process, if it is done properly, takes several weeks.

But what are the government doing in the case of this legislation? They will introduce it this week, and we will talk about it next week—in the last week of sitting of this year of parliament. I digress by saying that again since the Labor Party has taken over the Treasury benches, the Senate sits for shorter and shorter periods of time. They do not like scrutiny and they do not like debate. Next week, in the last three days of sitting for this year, when the media and the general public are looking towards Christmas and the holidays, they bring through these controversial bills. They will guillotine discussion on these bills, and so these bills will not be properly assessed. As I asked right at the beginning: why? It is because the last thing the Labor Party want discussed is the carbon tax that the Prime Minister promised she would never introduce.

This particular bill, the Clean Energy Amendment (International Emissions Trading and Other Measures) Bill, deserves and requires very extensive investigation. This bill is proposing that Australia ties its economy to the European economy. Again, you do not have to be a world renowned economist to work out that the European economy is in turmoil. It is a tragic indictment of years of left-wing governments spending more than they ever earned. If it had not been for Germany, a right-wing government, earning the money to bail out all the left-wing governments in Europe, then Europe would be in an even worse predicament. At the moment, the European economy is in turmoil, yet the Labor Party want our economy to join the European economy. I guess there is method in their madness. If you compare the Australian economy today with what it was under John Howard, that is a bad comparison, because people saw Howard as progressive and the economy as booming. They look at Labor and they see $157 billion in net debt and $250 billion in gross debt. This is following the Howard government, when we had $80 billion—not debt but credit. We had $80 billion in the bank, and the Labor Party have turned that into $157 billion in debt—or something like that. That was probably last week's figure and it is S165 billion today, because they borrow $100 million every day. The taxpayers, people listening to this broadcast, will one day have to repay that debt. Until it is repaid, the people listening to this broadcast, the taxpayers, will have to pay foreign lenders $20 million every day in interest to fund this government's incompetent financial management.

Again, I divert myself. This bill, which deserves full consideration, links the Australian economy with what is almost a basket case economy, that of Europe. It links the cost of carbon with that of Europe. What is the latest price of carbon in Europe? Is it the European equivalent of $5 a tonne? You can buy it for next to nothing—get it in a raffle—it is that cheap in Europe. How is that? I want someone to tell me that. This is what the Senate should be investigating: whether this bill was properly scrutinised in this chamber. This motion is trying to prevent that. I ask the Labor Party how $5 a tonne for carbon emissions is going to get anyone to stop their emissions. I have mentioned how China is quadrupling its use of carbon. To offset that you can just buy a permit—not that the Chinese bother about permits. I am in no way criticising China. I understand it is a developing country getting a better life for its citizens by reducing their cost of living. If someone in Australia, America or Europe wants to buy some permit, they pay a few dollars for a permit and they can emit what they like. How is that going to help?

These are the sorts of questions that need to be fully explored. We need to have the ministers trying to answer these questions. I would love to put those questions to the ministers and watch how the Labor Party squirm in trying to answer the obvious, which they will not be able to do. But I am not going to get that opportunity, because we will be guillotined. We will not have a committee stage of the bill and we will not be able to put these very relevant questions.

The Labor Party suggest in all of their modelling that the price per tonne of carbon emissions in Australia is going to increase from the current $23 to $29 a tonne and then to $39 a tonne. They say that by 2052 the price will increase to the equivalent of today's$305 a tonne. Europe will still be giving away permits at a couple of dollars a pop—or you will be able to take a raffle ticket and get a few permits as a prize. This is what the Labor government are trying to associate us with. This is the sort of legislation that demands to be fully exposed. It demands a proper committee inquiry, and I understand we are going to have a committee inquiry. I am being told that the committee inquiry will be all over in five days. That is how long it will take to put out the ads, get people to think about it and write their submissions, and then make their travel arrangements to come in and speak to the committee if the committee has an opportunity to question people—all this is to be done in five or six days.

Then, when the committee reports, this chamber should sit until some of these very simple and obvious questions are answered. But are they going to be? It will be guillotined through in the last three days of this Senate sitting.

That is why people out there have stopped listening to the Prime Minister and the current government. That is why, as in Queensland, they are just waiting for the election. Forget the opinion polls—they go up and down, as they did in Queensland. What happened? There were fewer people who took a how-to-vote card in the Queensland election than I have ever seen in my more than 40 years handing out how-to-vote cards. Why? They had made up their minds six months ago. It did not matter what happened in the campaign, it did not matter what how-to-vote card they got: they went to the polls and they knew what they were doing. The results speak for themselves. And the same is happening Australia wide. It is because this government is so incompetent, so undemocratic, that it shoves through this sort of bill—with the support, I might say, of the Greens political party—and stops this chamber fully investigating these bits of legislation. That is why the coalition will be opposing this.

Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the question be now put.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President, so that I can understand this, and so anyone listening can, is this a guillotine motion?

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

That is one description of it, indeed.

John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion moved by Senator McEwen—that the question be now put—be agreed to.

John Hogg (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question now is that the motion moved by Senator Collins be agreed to.

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the provisions of paragraphs (5) to (8) of standing order 111 not apply to the following bills, allowing them to be considered during this period of sittings:

Corporations Legislation Amendment (Derivative Transactions) Bill 2012

Crimes Legislation Amendment (Serious Drugs, Identity Crime and Other Measures) Bill 2012

Freedom of Information Amendment (Parliamentary Budget Office) Bill 2012

Higher Education Support Amendment (Streamlining and Other Measures) Bill 2012

National Health Security Amendment Bill 2012

Personal Liability for Corporate Fault Reform Bill 2012

Superannuation Auditor Registration Imposition Bill 2012

Superannuation Laws Amendment (Capital Gains Tax Relief and Other Efficiency Measures) Bill 2012

Superannuation Legislation Amendment (New Zealand Arrangement) Bill 2012

Tax Laws Amendment (2012 Measures No. 5) Bill 2012

Tax Laws Amendment (Clean Building Managed Investment Trust) Bill 2012.

Question agreed to.