Helen Kroger (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the 10th report of 2013 of the Selection of Bills Committee. I seek leave to have the report incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The report read as follows—

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

REPORT NO. 10 OF 2013

1. The committee met in private session on Wednesday, 4 December 2013 at 7.19 pm.

2. The committee resolved to recommend—That—

(a) the Tax Laws Amendment (Research and Development) Bill 2013be referred immediately to the Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 17 March 2014 (see appendix 1 for a statement of reasons for referral);

(b) the Infrastructure Australia Amendment Bill 2013be referred immediately to the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 17 March 2014 (see appendix 2 for a statement of reasons for referral);and

(c) the Migration Amendment (Regaining Control Over Australia’s Protection Obligations) Bill 2013 be referred immediately to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 3 March 2014 (see appendices 3 and 4 for a statement of reasons for referral).

3. The committee resolved to recommend—That the following bills not be referred to committees:

The committee recommends accordingly.

4. The committee considered the following bills but was unable to reach agreement:

5. The committee deferred consideration of the following bills to its next meeting:

(Helen Kroger)

Chair

4 December 2013

Appendix 1

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Tax Laws Amendment (Research and Development) Bill 2013

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

Detailed scrutiny of the principles of the Bill, particularly in regards to the

consequences of implementing exclusion criteria to the R&D Tax Incentive.

Possible submissions or evidence front

Australian Industry Group

Michael Johnson Associates (MJA)

Deloitte Access Economics

Ernst & Young

Minerals Council of Australia

Innovation Australia

Institute of Chartered Accountants Australia

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Economics Legislation Committee

Possible hearing date(s):

Public hearings in January — February 2014

Possible reporting date:

17 March 2013

Senator McEwen

(signed)

Whip/Selection of Bills Committee Member

Appendix 2

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Infrastructure Australia Amendment Sill 2013

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

The Bill restructures Infrastructure Australia, changes Its governance and permits the Minister to have a greater say on the type of projects that will be assessed, and how they will be assessed. It also changes arrangements for tax concessions for Infrastructure projects. It replaces the existing IA members with a Board.

This is seeking to substantially rewrite current arrangements and these provisions need detailed committee consideration.

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee

Possible hearing date(s):

Possible reporting date:

17 March 2014

Senator McEwen

(signed)

Whip/Selection of Bills Committee Member

Appendix 3

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Migration Amendment (Regaining Control Over Australia's Protection Obligations) Bill 2013

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

Detailed scrutiny of the Bill, particularly with regards to removal of the Protection (Class XA) (subclass 866) visa, Australia's non-refoulement obligations being met, investigation of return to administrative procedure (resumption of Ministerial discretion)

Possible submissions or evidence from:

UNHCR

Refugee Council of Australia

Curtin University Centre for Human Rights Education

Foundation House

Refugee Foundation of Australia

Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre

Human Rights Commission

Recipients of the Protection Visa

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee

Possible hearing date(s):

n/ a

Possible reporting date:

3 March 2014

Senator McEwen

(signed)

Whip/Selection of Bills Committee Member

Appendix 4

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Migration Amendment (Regaining Control Over Australia's Protection Obligations) Bill 2013

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Amnesty International Australia

UNHCR

Human Rights Law Centre

Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Legal and Constitutional Affair Committee

Possible hearing date(s):

Possible reporting date:

3 March 2014

Senator Siewert

(signed)

Whip/Selection of Bills Committee Member

I move that the report be adopted.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to move the following revised amendment to the Selection Bills Committee report, which I have circulated in the chamber. I move:

At the end of the motion, add "but, in respect of:

(a)   the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2013, provisions of the bill be referred immediately to committees for inquiry and report by 11 February 2014 as follows:

  (i)   the provisions of Schedules 6 and 9 of the bill, to the Education and Employment Legislation Committee,

  (ii)   the provisions of Schedule 2 of the bill, to the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee, and

  (iii)   the remaining provisions of the bill, to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee; and

(b)   the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Submarine Cable Protection) Bill 2013, the provisions of the bill be referred immediately to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 31 March 2014.".

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

Senator Siewert, there is a little bit of confusion. We do not have copies of the revised amendment.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand they are being circulated in the chamber. Perhaps I should explain the revised amendment—I presume you have seen the original amendment that was circulated? I apologise, we were just working out the details and hence its late circulation.

The difference is that we are splitting out some of the provisions of the bills, sending the ones that relate to child care and to the student start-up loans off to the education and employment committee, and the provisions that deal with the Cape York income management process get sent off to the Finance and Public Administration Committee.

The point is that the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2013 has 12 provisions in it, many of which are far-reaching provisions that have implications for many Australians, and these provisions need adequate time and adequate consideration. Because there are so many provisions some of them are not actually appropriate to be sent off to the Community Affairs Committee for inquiry, particularly those that relate to student start-up loans and the issues that relate to the indexation of the childcare rebate. Those issues were originally looked at, as I understand it, by the employment and education committee and it is appropriate that that committee consider those provisions.

Similarly with the Cape York income management process. Now that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues are dealt with by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, the Finance and Public Administration Committee now has responsibility for inquiry into Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander issues. So it is more appropriate that that bill, because it deals specifically with the Cape York trial, goes off to finance and public administration. Given the complex nature of these issues it is more appropriate that the committees that are tasked with looking into those issues are the committees that review those particular issues.

But to go back to the substantive matter: the government and, at that stage, the opposition—and I am hoping that we have managed to persuade the opposition to change their minds—felt that these very important amendments should not have any committee review. These provisions, for example, are provisions that are going to start charging interest on certain Centrelink debts—these relate to ABSTUDY and Austudy. In other words, once again this is targeting the most vulnerable Australians. These are vulnerable Australians, Australians who are trying to get by on allowances that are condemning them to live in poverty to begin with. And now the government wants to charge interest on their debts.

We believe that needs to be looked into. We believe that the impacts of these provisions need to be considered, particularly, for example, student start-up loans. These are taking a billion dollars out of support for students: is the government saying that does not need to be inquired into? These are provisions that take millions and millions of dollars out of support for child care and childcare rebate. Again, is this government saying that does not need to be inquired into? These have an enormous ramifications, not to mention—and I am sure my colleagues will want to speak on this as well—the backflip on, or the removal of, the gambling provisions.

We have just had a very informative debate in this place about the impacts of gambling on Australia, and now this government wants to unwind the even very modest changes that the previous government made. It thinks it is perfectly okay for us not to have an inquiry into those provisions. The Greens do not agree. We say that this bill, with such an enormous ramifications, should be inquired into.

My colleague Senator Ludlam will look at the submarine-cabling provisions. When we were first asked to consider this bill in the Selection of Bills Committee, the provisions had not even been properly put up on the website so we did not even know what we were supposed to be considering in the first place. And when I sought to have this referred to committee last night, the government did not want to have that looked into either. I am sure Senator Ludlam will highlight the significant problems with these bills. This government has only been in for a couple of months, and already it is running away from scrutiny of legislation that can have significant impacts. It is not good enough, which is why we have moved to get these provisions referred to committee for proper consideration.

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move the following amendment to Senator Siewert's proposed amendment:

Paragraph (a), omit "11 February 2014”, substitute “12 December 2013".

Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the issue of referring the gambling bill, in particular—the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2013—to inquiry. It is remarkable. The coalition campaigned mercilessly for months in the lead-up to the last election about the new sort of grown-up government we were going to get. It was going to be open, honest and accountable, with no broken promises—and in the space of a few short weeks we have seen this government do everything it can to avoid scrutiny, whether it be on this issue of poker machine reform, the issue of refugees and asylum seekers or a range of other issues.

This bill needs to go to inquiry and we need to ensure that it gets the proper scrutiny. People have very short memories in this place. Occasionally this is referred to as a bit of a goldfish bowl because we look up and we are like goldfish swimming around in an aquarium, but I think it is more because people in this place have the memories of goldfish. Poker machine reform was one of the key issues of the last parliament. It was one of the issues that defined the 43rd Parliament. We saw an election result that hinged on the support of one of the Independents, who made poker machine reform one of the key issues on which that government would be formed. We saw the whole circus of Clubs Australia coming to town. We saw the conniptions that both sides of politics got themselves into because of the brutal campaign of lobbying from Clubs Australia. People forget we ended up replacing the Speaker of the Australian parliament in an effort to avoid voting on a piece of legislation that the then government had agreed to. The issue of poker machine reform was one of the things that triggered the demotion, or resignation, of the then Speaker, Harry Jenkins, and his replacement with Peter Slipper. That was because of the debate around poker machine reform.

We saw the government change the Speaker and renege on the deal it signed with the Independent Andrew Wilkie. It then did everything it could to get the support of the Senate—particularly through Senator Madigan, Senator Xenophon and me—for its watered-down reforms. We spent months negotiating with the government and with the minister at the time to introduce a number of measures that would strengthen that bill, in some effort to try and salvage reform on pokies. It was an issue that caused so much angst, so much heartache, so much grief, for all sides in this chamber, and now we have the government hiding the repeal of that piece of legislation that caused so much angst in the previous parliament—hiding the repeal bill in amongst a range of other measures in an effort to avoid scrutiny. And now we are contemplating the idea of not even referring it to an inquiry? The defining issue of the 43rd Parliament is suddenly going to be dealt with in the space of a few minutes here in this chamber?

Let us just hope that the first few weeks of this new government are an aberration, that its words around open, honest, transparent government were not a promise that we thought it made but it did not really make, just like with Gonski. Let us hope it was a promise that it will keep. Let us make sure we get the appropriate scrutiny that the repeal of these modest reforms deserves and let us ensure we do everything we can to highlight to the community that we have a government intent on doing the bidding of the big end of town rather than supporting some of the most vulnerable people in Australia.

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

We support the amended motion before the chamber. There is a longstanding norm in this place of support for any senator who wants to refer any bill to a committee for scrutiny. It is important that senators have the right to do that and that they get the support of this place to do that. In fact, that is doing our job. We note that there are some significant time frame urgencies in some elements of the bill, and that is why we are supporting the truncated time for review. There is also an issue around the fact that anyone who brings in such a compendium of issues in one piece of legislation makes it very difficult for us in this place to do our job. I think there are at least eight different elements of this bill, which means that to have any effective scrutiny is very difficult, particularly when there are time frames involved. There is also the need to ensure that the appropriate part of this legislation is referred to the appropriate committee, and that has led to the need to have an amended motion put before us, because there are now three committees that need to work to ensure that the issues are covered. On that basis, we support the referral and we just make a note about our concerns about this form of process in trying to do such a large piece of legislation in one go.

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

I am just going to add a few comments and not detain the chamber for long on the second part of Senator Siewert's motion, which relates to the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Submarine Cable Protection) Bill 2013. It is difficult to know whether this is just an administrative stuff-up or whether it was actually an attempt to avoid scrutiny, but I understand that now reason has prevailed. As Senator Moore has indicated, there is a reason as to why it has become the convention in this place that bills of any degree of moderate or high controversy or complexity should almost as of right be referred to Senate committees. It is what this chamber does; it is us doing our job. Preventing an inquiry into a key piece of legislation prevents the Senate doing what it is here to do. In my experience, you then end up simply litigating it clause by clause in the committee stage before the full chamber, which is not a good use of the chamber's time. You do not get the benefit of expert witnesses and frequently we are dealing with ministers who are acting for someone in the other place and who have a limited experience of what the bill is about. It is not very satisfying for anybody.

My whip tells me that we do have government and, I believe, opposition support certainly for the second part of Senator Siewert's amendment being reported on by 31 March 2014. We sought to refer this bill because when the Selection of Bills Committee was asked to make a call on whether to refer the bill it was doing so in the blind. It had not made its way into the house and none of the documentation was available to us, and it is very difficult to make a judgement call on degree of complexity or controversy if you have not seen supporting documents around the bill. I have received a briefing since then from Minister Turnbull, who made a staffer available to us to talk us through it.

We do have some questions. The bill relates to protection of submarine cables that carry upwards of 99 per cent of data traffic between continents. Obviously senators will be aware of the high degree of public interest at the moment in protection of these cables because they are critical infrastructure. Particularly for an island nation, submarine cables are what link us to the rest of the world. It is not, as some people believe, all satellite traffic—the backbone of the internet is these submarine cables. Not only do they need to be protected from inadvertent disturbance from shipping, for example; they also need to be protected from malicious disturbance, such as people attaching taps to those fibres to divert the traffic entirely unlawfully. Presumably that is what this bill is designed to protect against. We want to ensure that the results of the statutory review that was undertaken by ACMA five years after the 2005 legislation came into force are adequate, to review the decisions taken by government in addition to the outcomes of the review. That is why we have Senate inquiries.

It is not clear to me on first reading whether the oversight mechanisms proposed in the bill are sufficient, whether the streamlining of permits process as outlined improves the security of this telecommunications infrastructure or not. The bill includes new powers for the A-G to direct ACMA to refuse a permit on security grounds. It is not at all clear on what criteria those refusals could be made, and that is what a Senate inquiry is for. Given that, as the bill is drafted, these decisions are not reviewable, we need to know what the Attorney would need to have before him as he is making those judgement calls. So I am pleased that we found reason. I am not at all clear as to why this was not simply resolved amicably in Selection of Bills Committee but I look forward to participating in the inquiry over the summer and coming back and if necessary improving the legislation.

Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Siewert for moving this amendment to the motion before us. It really is giving leadership on the important issue of an inquiry into such a comprehensive piece of legislation. I have certainly been following it closely because it covers an area that I put considerable work into with regard to higher education. There is an area here with regard to the huge impact this legislation, if it went through in its current form, would have on tens of thousands of students because this covers what is called the start-up scholarships and at the moment it runs to about $1.2 billion. If this was changed in the form proposed, that would bring considerable disadvantage, changing scholarships into loans. So clearly that is another area that needs to be given close attention. What we have here with Senator Siewert's amendment is a possibility for that inquiry to go ahead and be able to provide that valuable information.

We know that there is already considerable community concern about this. The policy was originally one of Labor's, announced in April this year. At that time many people who work in this sector, particularly students, the National Union of Students and other organisations, raised the issue of the impact and if it would prove to be a disincentive. There is particular concern that it was targeting people who are already disadvantaged, many of them coming from families where nobody had ever gone to university before and the start-up scholarship was a real incentive to take their education forward in a way that would really open up so many opportunities for the rest of their lives and in turn help create a much more productive, innovative Australia. Opening up the chances of higher education to a much wider section of our community is something that would be lost if the legislation went through in its current form. We felt this really needed to be looked at closely.

But there is a wider principle of the need for inquiries into legislation, and that is why I was very pleased when I spoke to Senator Siewert earlier to hear that this was being brought forward so that we could have this inquiry into the legislation, one of the most wonderful aspects of the Senate, and that we are able to continue to do this.

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

I rise to speak in favour of the proposition put forward by the Australian Greens whip, Rachel Siewert, to ensure that we are able to split off these bills to referrals, because it is absolutely important that the Senate plays its part in looking at the detail of this legislation. The one particular part of this legislation that I am interested in is the fact that the coalition late in the last sitting week tried to sneak this piece of legislation through without anybody noticing, which was a total backflip on their promise to families to make sure child care in this country would become cheaper. Well, no, this bill is going to push up prices for families right throughout the country.

We knew when this legislation was first floated three years ago that the number of families that would be affected was over 70,000. Fast forward three or four years and we now know that that is going to be over 100,000 families impacted because this government—despite everything that it has said and despite what it has said in its press releases, what this government does in the chamber seems to be a very different matter—wants to freeze the amount of money that families can get as part of their childcare rebate. Where was that on the coalition's plan of action for Australia that Tony Abbott took around the country? Where did it say that the coalition was going to push up prices so that families would not be able to afford accessible quality child care? It was not there.

This is a broken promise of this government, and it is absolutely imperative that the Senate is able to look into the detail of it so that families, childcare operators and childcare workers know exactly the agenda of this government—it is secret; it is hidden; they are sneaking around like they do on everything else. But, at the end of the day, this will impact the pockets of hundreds of thousands of Australian families, our children, our childcare centres and our childcare workers. Australian parents and families deserve much more than the coalition trying to rush this through with no scrutiny and with cover-up sneakiness. That is exactly why the Senate is here: to make sure we can shine a spotlight and some transparency on a government who has backflipped hoping no-one would notice. You know what, Mr President? We have noticed, and Australian families are starting to wake up. This government promised one thing at the election and are doing something totally different. They are just hoping that they can get away with it. Referring this to an inquiry is an important part of the process, and we will be making sure that we push that through.

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

The question now is that the amendment moved by Senator Fifield be agreed to.

The question now is that the amendment as amended be agreed to.

Question agreed to.

The question now is that the motion as amended be agreed to.

Question agreed to.