George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of all answers to questions without notice asked today.

The particular answers to which I wish to address myself are the answers given by Senator Conroy to Senator Humphries and by Senator Ludwig to a dorothy dix question from his backbench concerning the government's backdown on its Human Rights and Anti-Discrimination Bill 2012.

Backdowns do not come more humiliating than this. Throughout most of 2012 the former Attorney-General, Ms Nicola Roxon, described the anti-discrimination bill as one of the government's signature pieces of human rights legislation. It was the centrepiece of her social engineering—her ambitions to turn Australia into a nanny state, governed by political correctness, in which the government would decide what it was appropriate for people to say. That is what Ms Roxon said again and again: 'We will decide what is appropriate.'

We in the opposition saw that for what it was: part of a front in the war that the Gillard government has waged against freedom of speech. The attack on freedom of speech can sometimes be frontal but sometimes, equally insidiously, it can be subtle. It can be subtle in changing the manner in which people deal with each other, what they feel free and unconstrained to say to one another and the subjects they feel are open to them to discuss in ordinary discourse; and yet this government, to its undying shame, brought forward legislation which sought to impose the government's will between citizen and citizen in a free country to try to determine what people were free to say to one another. They brought forward a bill which, among other things, would have made it unlawful for a person, in the course of a political discussion in the workplace, to express an opinion which another person in that workplace might have found offensive. Just think about that, Mr Deputy President: what that would mean for freedom of discussion in Australia's workplaces and what it would have done to the Australian way of life overall.

More shamefully, not only did they make this insidious, subtle but dangerous attempt to trammel our freedom of speech, they pretended it was nothing more than an exercise in statutory tidying up. The new Attorney-General, Mr Mark Dreyfus, said so. He said, in an opinion to Steve Austin on 612 ABC Radio in Brisbane in January this year, that this law makes no change to the existing law; it is just a tidying up of existing legislation. That was not the truth. Attorneys-General should tell the truth. Mr Dreyfus, being a senior council, should certainly know how to tell the truth about a statute, and that was not the truth. As every witness to the Senate committee observed, this was a radical departure in Australian law.

Now, this morning, Mr Dreyfus has dumped the proposal comprehensively and instead adopted the opposition's proposal, because the opposition senators who sat on the Senate committee that reviewed the bill made two recommendations: firstly, that the bill not be proceeded with and, secondly, that part II of the Sex Discrimination Act be amended to include identity as a gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or intersex person as a protected attribute to which the act extends—a well acknowledged and longstanding gap in the coverage of legitimate anti-discrimination law by the Commonwealth of Australia. That is what Mr Dreyfus announced this morning.

So in the course of a humiliating backdown, Mr Dreyfus announced, as the policy of the government—a government that has been in office for 5½ years—the policy the coalition took to the 2010 election, and shamefully sought to cover his tracks by saying, 'We're just going to have another look at this.' Nobody listening to Mr Dreyfus this morning was persuaded because what Mr Dreyfus was doing was raising the white flag on one of the most dangerous attempts at social engineering in the history of this parliament. Nevertheless, the freedom wars go on on the front of freedom of the press.

Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am absolutely amazed that today we should be looking at a celebration of something which we have just heard the shadow Attorney-General state with great pride is something the opposition will be supporting. In fact, you pointed out that in the five years of our government we had not moved to pick up on this issue—in twelve years of your government you did not even identify this issue.

What we had today was the Attorney-General go out and talk about how we are moving with this process. We are moving forward with one extremely important element: to ensure that there is equity in our community. We are moving forward because we know that we have agreement on this. This is something we can do now that will achieve a result for people who have been waiting for a very long time to have their rights fully enshrined in the legislation. You know, of course, that our government has moved to remove discrimination against people who are in same-sex relationships and who identify in this way, in a whole range of government legislation. In fact, I believe that it is 85 pieces of legislation in which we have removed any discrimination. This particular amendment that we are bringing forward today for this legislation enshrines the fact that people cannot be discriminated against for being in same-sex relationships or being intersex—I will just get the words correct and get that on record—and that is coming forward in legislation.

I am amazed that, instead of actually working and saying that we have achieved this, we have to go back into this extraordinary conspiracy process which was run by the opposition consistently through the extensive Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee proceedings that my friend Senator Crossin chaired—and an astounding amount of submissions came forward—which was looking at consolidating our anti-discrimination laws in Australia. The Attorney-General, on the ABC radio in Brisbane earlier this year—and luckily I happened to be listening to that interview; I do not always hear everything that is on that program, but I did hear that—talked about the tidying-up process. He also talked about changes that would be taking place in that process. What he said clearly this morning in public was that we were going to continue with that work, because it is complex and it is also necessary. The Attorney-General has said on record that we are moving forward with this one piece of legislation today. But there is no abandonment; we are not moving away from the commitment that we made to pull together the five pieces of legislation that are part of that process now.

I cannot understand why this has been portrayed consistently by senators on the other side as some form of attack on, or some form of conspiracy against, free speech. I am not going to go down that track in this short contribution of how we look at free speech in this place. There are quite serious differences around what constitutes free speech. Nonetheless, we need to see that this is not a time in the political process to say that because we have not moved forward with all the recommendations from the wonderful Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee that we are moving away from it. What the Attorney-General has said—and what our government has said—is that this is a work in progress, and it is clearly on the record that that is what we are going to be doing.

I think what we need to see is that there are people on the other side who are opposed to some of the things that were being discussed in that committee. They were open about that. They opposed some things and they put in opposition comments that they do not want those things to happen. That does not work for our side as well. There is no abandonment to our commitment to move forward with our anti-discrimination legislation. This is a step forward, and I believe we have had the commitment that means that it is going to be accepted. So at least that will occur.

I am very sorry that I will not have a chance to talk more deeply about Senator Colbeck's question about the IER. It is something in which I have deep interest and I know that it is something that will cause a great deal of discussion. I sincerely trust that we will hear from Senator Colbeck about the importance of this area in this taking note exercise. I just apologise, through you, Mr Deputy President, that I cannot take up that issue. We are not moving away from our anti-discrimination process.

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

I certainly will be taking up further discussion around the IER, as was perhaps promised by Senator Moore. I have to say, the minister's answer to this question today just demonstrates even further the complete and utter chaos that operates within the government around the operations of the agricultural portfolio. I asked a number of questions at additional estimates on 11 February—not long ago—to find out what the status of this reserve was. I was told that it would be reducing from about $24 million in surplus to about $10 million in surplus. Just last Friday the committee received a correction to the advice that was given to the committee and to me at additional estimates on 11 February. When I asked the question about what the reserve might be, I was told by the departmental official that the forecast was to be around $14 million by the end of the financial year—a change from $24.688 million. The correction that arrived to the committee last Friday, and that was accepted by the committee on Monday just gone, was that the IER is forecast to be around $10 million in deficit; a turnaround of $24.688 million, going from $14 million in surplus—reducing by $24.68 million—to about $10 million in deficit.

Today Minister Ludwig came in and said that it has since been recalculated. He accused me of trying to mislead the Senate and of not doing my homework. This is the latest advice that I have, accepted by the committee on Monday and received last Friday, saying that we are $10 million in deficit. He then tabled an answer today to questions on notice, taken by the department and by the government at estimates on 11 February, saying that the figure has been revised—after he tried to accuse me of misleading the chamber by giving a wrong number when his department gave me that number just last Friday—to say that the industry reserve balance is forecast at $3.4 million. That is a start; that is at least a change, but it is still a significant reduction from $14 million in surplus to $3.4 million. They are still going backwards by $10 million. Yet, when I ask what the money is being spent on, the minister cannot tell us the answer to that question. What is the money being spent on? Is it, as we suspect, significant, out-of-control cost overruns on new IT systems being developed by the department?

We just want to know; industry wants to know.

But, more importantly, how are we going to turn this around? How do we turn around this continued running down of industry reserve funds that are there so that there does not have to be a huge fluctuation in the rate of fees and charges that are charged to industry? Is industry going to have to pay for the government's complete inefficiencies yet again? Are we going to see huge increases in fees and charges like we did under the export fees and charges program where they have gone up in excess of 1,300 per cent? Are we going to see more of that? How is it going to be recouped? How will we get this reserve back to $18 million—$18 million is where the department would like to see the reserve placed.

The minister had absolutely no idea of any of these elements of those questions today—absolutely none. The only thing he could do was to accuse opposition of misleading the parliament when he has not provided the parliament with the information that we sought. He tabled an update after question time today, and yet the latest information we had from the department, from the government, was only last Friday. It just demonstrates the complete and utter chaos that exists within the agriculture portfolio. It compounds the complete debacle of live exports that has caused damage right across the beef industry in this country. You really wonder how this minister continues to hold his portfolio when, within three or four days, and only four or five weeks after additional estimates, we have complete chaos in relation to the numbers that are being provided to this parliament.

Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too would like to take note of the answers to questions on notice. I would particularly like to take up the points that Senator Brandis was raising about the issues of the Anti-Discrimination Act and the response from Senator Moore. To me, it was a pretty disingenuous attempt by Senator Brandis on this issue because, as we all know, that draft consultation bill that was released last December was a very important piece of work that attempted to consolidate five anti-discrimination bills. It has undergone a very deep and meaningful process of scrutiny through the Senate committee process and, as the Senate committee reported last month, there were more than 100 recommendations in that report from the committee.

To me, it seems that when we are trying to use the committee process to improve and to amend legislation for the greater good—to bring those five pieces of legislation together, to make sure the language is consistent, that changes to a consolidated act do not accidentally disenfranchise or disadvantage anyone—there is this notion, when we are all here trying to do some very important work, that this should be seen as a capitulation in some respects. We are damned if we do and we are damned if we don't in this place so often if we decide not to proceed helter-skelter down a road of reform.

What I was pleased to hear Minister Dreyfus say this morning was the acknowledgement that major changes were going to be required to that draft legislation to ensure that it did reflect the many, many concerns raised about the issues brought forward. So let us just be a little bit more genuine about the purpose of the redrafting work that will be done; doing what we should do wisely and sensibly—sending it back to the drafters for major improvements. I look forward to seeing that bill when it comes forward again.

The alternative is what Senator Brandis, as the shadow spokesperson and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, has in mind in terms of anti-discrimination. His suggestion is a promise to repeal the Racial Vilification Act. In my mind, that is something that will go about stripping people's protections from hate speech. We have seen plenty of examples in the media about that, and I really hope that we would not be going down that path as an alternative to anti-discrimination legislation.

However, I actually asked a very important question today in question time, which went to Senator Kim Carr. It was in relation to the fact that it is Seniors Week this week and the important contribution that the government is making and the important support that the government is giving to senior Australians. I want to acknowledge the fact that single pensioners will, from today, start receiving that extra $35.80 a fortnight and that pensioner couples on a maximum rate will receive an extra $54 a fortnight—and that includes Labor's clean energy supplement.

What we as a Labor government are about is ensuring that senior Australians, wherever they live, are being supported in the community. The raft of initiatives that have been undertaken to ensure that our senior Australians are able to live with some dignity are very important. The aged care package that Minister Butler released last week and the financial planning services that the Department of Human Services has been rolling out for senior Australians are all very sensible and supportive initiatives that I am very proud that we are able to have in place. But, again, the opposition's suggestion is to claw back the initiatives that are under the Household Assistance Package, reducing pensions by at least $350 a year. I think the options are very clear for all Australians about seniors.

David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to take note of answers from Senator Wong to a question from Senator Edwards particularly relating to the collapse of Priority Engineering Services, a firm in South Australia that has been an innovator for many years in the area of engineering and manufacturing. This is a company that has a worldwide footprint in terms of their stamping press washers in the automotive sector, particularly in Malaysia. They have been a pivotal part of South Australia's industry presence, stemming back to the Collins-class submarine and some of the work they did on that through to current projects.

The vindictiveness that came across the chamber from Senator Wong today was particularly disappointing, because it was about politics as opposed to the people who are involved in this company. Both Mr Peter Page and Mr Peter Parrish, the directors of this company, have invested a huge amount of their personal effort, time, resources and capital into developing this company and growing it to be a significant employer of South Australians, an innovator of manufacturing processes and a contributor to the manufacturing capability of this country. To have their efforts dismissed in such a manner is truly disappointing.

Priority Engineering is one of many firms in South Australia that has been encouraged by the government to move from their traditional markets of the automotive sector and mining into the defence sector. The government has consistently told them that there are huge opportunities for them by getting engaged with the prime contractors from overseas and getting into the global supply chain, particularly into the support for acquisitions and sustainment in this country. This has not just been verbal encouragement—$1.8 million was given by this Labor government to Priority Engineering specifically to enable them to tool up and skill their people through an acquisition so that they could participate in this defence industry sector.

For private business, that does not just come out of thin air. Those kinds of acquisitions mean that you take on debt, and debt needs to be serviced. Some of the things that bank managers look at are whether you have a business plan and where your work is coming from. In the case of defence industry, the document they look to is the Defence Capability Plan. When the government issues a Defence Capability Plan and, more importantly, announce, on the strength of that capability plan and a tender process, a preferred tenderer that they have entered into contract negotiations with, there is a high degree of expectation on the part of defence industry that the dates that have been put forward in the Defence Capability Plan and the tender will be followed through.

When the government mismanages that plan, as was the case in one of the projects that Priority Engineering was involved with, and cannot bring to conclusion a contract negotiation process with the prime—it had stretched on for months and months into new years—that spells cash flow problems for companies. It appears that one thing that this government does not understand is the reality for small business of profit and loss and the importance of cash flow. When they mismanage plans, cancel or defer programs or cannot bring to timely conclusion contract negotiations that directly goes to the cash flow, and therefore the viability, of the people who have tooled up in the expectation of fulfilling part of Australia's national defence capability requirement.

This government has mismanaged the Defence Capability Plan. That mismanagement has had a direct impact on Australia's defence capability through the failures of companies like Priority Engineering. If the people of Australia cannot trust this government with defence capability, and therefore the security of this nation, and if they cannot trust them with the security of their jobs, then it is time for the people of this country to change the government so that we bring in a government that truly looks at the role that defence industry plays as a part of the national defence capability of this country and puts in place defence capability plans that are achievable and predictable and will be implemented not only for the benefit of the nation but so that we can sustain the jobs and the innovation that the defence industry has so consistently brought to this country.

Penny Wright (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to take note of the answer provided by the Minister representing the Attorney-General in relation to the government's abandonment of their commitment to reform anti-discrimination laws which was officially announced today.

The government has suggested that this is merely a deferral of their commitment, but the reality is, as we know, that if the foreshadowed reform of these anti-discrimination laws was not to be introduced this week, so that it could be debated in the next session, then, effectively, it is off for all comers. We know that unless that was going to occur before the election we would not know what happen after that.

Unfortunately, with this abandonment the government is betraying the hopes and the faith of many Australians who have been waiting for a very long time to see simpler, fairer equality laws. Significant numbers of people have been working in relation to this matter for many years. There has been extensive consultation. There have been reports in relation to the law reform, and, of course, we have also recently seen a comprehensive and thorough inquiry process by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, of which I am a member. So I had the benefit of actually hearing the numerous submissions made by Australians across the country who have been very keen to see fairer, simpler equality laws brought in, consistent with the government's pre-election commitment.

We know that what will happen with this walking away from this election commitment is that there will be many people who will now be unprotected who were going to have protections enhanced. Victims of family and domestic, for instance, currently can be discriminated against without sanction, for instance, in the real estate market, where they can be denied accommodation by real estate agents if the agents are concerned that a person applying for accommodation may be subject to domestic violence. They have no recourse at the moment. People with family responsibilities—carers and parents—can be discriminated against in most situations without any recourse.

These were reforms that were foreshadowed in the draft exposure bill. They were recommendations of the committee inquiring into the bill that will now be abandoned. We also know that there are many people in Australia who can still be discriminated against by religious organisations, religious bodies and schools. Those people were not necessarily going to be protected by the changes to the law, although that is what the Greens were certainly calling for.

We do know that the exposure draft of the bill did suggest that at the very least people who were needing aged-care be protected from the existing religious exceptions in current antidiscrimination law. The government had put that in the exposure draft. The committee had certainly recommended that that be upheld, but that in fact is now not going to occur.

The government has indicated that it will take some limited but important reform steps in relation to the Sex Discrimination Act to include sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status. We very much welcome those. They are long overdue. Unfortunately, being so restricted, there are still many Australians who will be left short.

The other aspect we do need to be aware of, even in relation to that law reform, is that the religious exceptions will remain and indeed will extend to people who have those protected attributes as well. So where religious bodies and organisations are allowed to lawfully discriminate currently on the basis of protected attributes they will continue to be allowed to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, gender identity and intersex status. Of course, they are a significant body of the Australians who are discriminated against by those powerful institutions in society. Today the news does not offer them any hope that that will change, because the religious exceptions will remain on foot.

The Attorney-General has said timing and complexity are issues. Why did the government leave this election commitment until the last minute? Labor has clearly lost the political will to protect human rights. This is a great shame. It is a shame that Labor apparently does not have the courage of its convictions to see these reforms through, to take on the debate, to make the case and to make sure that Australians are adequately protected, as it had undertaken to do before the election.

Question agreed to.