Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the report of the Education and Employment Legislation Committee on the provisions of the Fair Work Amendment (Respect for Emergency Services Volunteers) Bill 2016, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee, and I move:

That the report be printed.

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not intend to speak to the content of the report because we are about to go into the second reading debate on that, but I do want to make a point—and this is a general point—about the committee system within the Senate. Again, we were confronted with a very short time frame to conduct this inquiry. At the outset, the committee secretariat advised non-government senators that they would probably be in a position where no support would be provided to enable them to prepare a dissenting report. At the end of the day, there was some support provided. I thank the secretariat for doing that, but it actually resulted in a lot of work being done over the weekend and the final dissenting report not being concluded until 9.30 this morning.

I think this is a very unfortunate but all too common turn of events. It would appear that the Senate committee system is using all of its resources to simply do a chair's draft. The chair's draft, inevitably, will support the legislation. There are odd occasions when there are some suggested changes, but 999 times out of 1,000 the chair's draft will support the legislation and recommend that the bill be approved. That puts us in a position where the Senate committee system is simply becoming a rubber stamp for the government. I do not think that is why the Senate committee system was in fact established. I think it was established so we could have a fair dinkum review and look at the legislation before us and so alternate views could be put succinctly with the appropriate support from the committee secretariat—to put those alternate views, unintended consequences and other things that may not have been necessarily considered by the government.

I think it is not appropriate that the Senate committee system simply becomes a rubber stamp for the government in these circumstances. The government has enormous resources at its disposal when it actually creates the bill and brings it to the Senate. It does not need the Senate committee system to rubberstamp it. I think it is something, Mr President, that we need to have a very serious and careful look at. If there are resourcing problems—and of course there are—we need to address those problems in a way where non-government senators are supported.

Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the same vein, I will not speak on the substance of this report but, more or less, add to what Senator Marshall has just said. I have long—and particularly during the last parliament—been of the view that the whole Senate committee system, which once was revered, has fallen into disrepute. In the last parliament, in particular, so many reference committee inquiries were set up with a predetermined outcome. I got to the stage on a number of committees where I would not even bother going because I knew that the majority on the committee had, before hearing one word of evidence, already written, in effect, the report that would come to the parliament. I only raise that to say that this really has brought the committee system—which, as I say, used to be so well revered—into disrepute.

What Senator Marshall says about dissenting reports, I guess, makes some sense. I have to tell Senator Marshall that I have had to draft the dissenting report for most references committee I have been involved in. I have done so not terribly skilfully, as that is not one of my great attributes, but we have had to do, we have done it and we have got the message across for anyone who happened to read it. But I have to say that the more I see of the Senate committee system, regrettably, the only people that bother to read them these days are journalists who have a particular angle that they want to make a story of.

As Senator Marshall said, in most of the legislation committees the recommendation will be to support the bill. Although, as Senator Marshall may know and as Senator Collins well knows, because she was on a committee that I chaired, on several occasions the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee would recommend amendments to the bill. That is, of course, what the committee system was supposed to be all about.

The legislation comes before the legislation committee. People who have a serious concern—and that is not always the majority of those who give evidence, I might say—can come along and say, 'We understand what the government wants; we don't necessarily agree with it, but perhaps you could amend it or add this or do something to it,' and often the committee has been persuaded that there does need to be some amendment to government legislation, and that has gone through as a committee recommendation, and, as far as I can recall, the government has, on each occasion, picked up the amendment.

But the references committees are set up principally for purely political purposes. We have yet again an inquiry into Manus Island and Nauru. I think it is about the fourth one. Nothing new comes out. We have the same old group of people on one side making their complaints—usually unsupported by factual, firsthand evidence—and we just waste the time of the committee. There are so many committees running at the present time that particularly on the government side—and, when Labor are in power, the same applies to them—there are so few backbench senators that the senators involved can do no more than make a cursory consideration of the matters before the various committees.

I agree with Senator Marshall in his bottom-line submission: the whole Senate committee system needs a major review. Once upon a time—and I have said this twice before but I will repeat it—you could go to a Senate committee report or a hearing and really find it valuable. The reports, the work, really did change things in our country. But in this day and age, I regret to say, with most Senate committees, be they legislation or references, you could almost write the report before the committee starts. I regret saying that, because a lot of people do come to those committees seriously and with the thought that they may be able to change the course of debate and legislation. I think we need to somehow get back to the situation where these committees do actually mean something, are serious and are not there for purely political purposes but are there to try and get the best for our country from legislation and other matters that are before the parliament.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I adopt the position that has been put forward by Senator Marshall. I agree with some of the comments made by Senator Macdonald and I know that Senator Macdonald is genuine in the views that he is putting forward in relation to the committees, but I do not agree with some of the substance of what Senator Macdonald has said. I firstly indicate that Labor really welcomes the support that we get from the secretariats. The secretariats do a great job both for government and for the opposition, but, as Senator Marshall has indicated, they are under the pump. That is the bottom line. They are under huge pressure, from both government and opposition, to provide professional, well-thought-through reports to the Senate and to the Australian public. I think they do that very well, but the resources are the issue for the secretariats. I do not think it is a matter of how the secretariats operate. I do not think it is a matter of the politicisation of reference inquiries. I mean, here we are, we are all politicians, but we have politicised a reference inquiry—what a terrible thing! It has happened ever since inquiries have been there. Politics are part of what we do for a living, and the committees actually work through that pretty well.

I take the view that this is simply about a resource issue. I know, Mr President, that you have raised the issue of resources on many occasions in terms of the Senate being able to be a proper house of review. If we are to be a proper house of review, we actually need the resources to be available not only for government but to the opposition and the crossbenchers in relation to reports and inquiries in the Senate. So I do agree with some of the aspects that Senator Macdonald has raised, but not that there needs to be a major review. I think this is an issue of resources and that is how this could be resolved.

Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just have a couple of comments to make around the discussion this morning. During my time here as a senator, I have sought to maintain the integrity of the Senate committee process and I have often raised my concerns with the resource issue and indeed the workload issues that have come. We all have to take responsibility for that. They are decisions of the Senate, which actually mean we set up select committees and we refer issues to references inquiries and the like. In the selection of bills process any Senator can refer a piece of legislation to the legislation committees for inquiry. So, whilst we complain that that occurs, we all actually have to take responsibility and maybe talk to our own whips and our own leadership to ensure they are thinking of that as those decisions are made.

I do not agree with the notion that a legislation inquiry, particularly in the committee that I chair, results in a rubber stamp. I refer the senators who would question that to the higher education reform legislation of a couple of years ago, where our committee made significant recommendations—five recommendations actually—for changes that over a period of time were actually adopted by the government. So I do not take legislation committees being a rubber stamp as fact.

With respect to this particular inquiry, our committee has been under the pump—absolutely. It was very clear that this piece of legislation was always going to come to our committee and was always going to be subject to an inquiry. And, with the government's desire to see it before the parliament as soon as possible, as per our election commitment, it was not going to be a long inquiry. But our committee secretariat's workload has been taken up with doing the fourth inquiry into the ABCC and registered organisations legislation, which, again, was always going to come before the Senate.

The committee I chair, the Education and Employment Committee, has inquired into this so many times—hearing the same evidence from the same submitters, over and over again. And, yet, we took up committee secretariat time to hold another hearing, to read the submissions and to write a report. Similarly, there are the childcare legislation and hearings that our committee has had to do over the past two weeks. So I would question those that are making the complaint. Look at your own behaviour. We could have done that report into ABCC and registered organisations on the papers and given our secretariat some issues.

I also want to put on the record that when we were in opposition getting secretariat support for dissenting reports was similarly difficult, so I do not think it is a unique situation. But I will do everything I can as chair and everything I can do as a senator to ensure that the integrity of the Senate committee process is upheld and that there continues to be a body of work from this place that all Australians can be proud of and that will inform debate and discussion in the public arena. Thank you.

Ordered that the report be printed.