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

I move an amendment to Senator Moore's amendment in respect of the Shipping Legislation Amendment Bill 2015:

omit "Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Legislation Committee", substitute "Economics Legislation Committee"; and

omit "the first sitting day of 2016", substitute "12 August 2015".

Let me just emphasise that Senator Moore's amendment seeks to have the inquiry into this legislation report in 2016. I know that it will not have escaped your attention that it is currently 2015. In fact, we have yet to reach the middle of 2015. What this amendment from Senator Moore seeks to do is to put the consideration of this legislation out into the never-never. The government is not adverse to an inquiry. We are very comfortable with an inquiry. In fact, we would have understood if the opposition had elected to have a date later in the year, but they have chosen not to.

The Deputy Prime Minister, who has responsibility for this legislation, has repeatedly stated the government's intention to ensure that the bill be subject to scrutiny by the parliament. We do not have an issue with that, but, as I have indicated, an inquiry process that will take more than six months is not reasonable, is counterproductive and will do nothing but further damage the shipping industry in Australia. We have already seen the number of major Australian registered ships with coastal licence plummet from 30 vessels in 2006-07 to just 15 in 2013-14. I pose the question: do Labor and the Greens want to wait until the industry is past the point of no return before action is taken?

The government has been consulting with stakeholders for more than a year on coastal shipping policy. Their response has been resounding. They want Labor's overly bureaucratic, deliberately cumbersome and inflexible legislation changed. It is also interesting that Labor would propose such a long committee process when this is the complete opposite of their behaviour when they introduced their own legislation when last in government. Labor rushed the legislation through the parliament, dumping a significant number of amendments on the parliament and without providing the then opposition or industry the opportunity to consider them in any detail to determine their impact. Such significant economic reform that will have such wide-reaching positive impact on the Australian economy warrants the consideration of the Senate economics committee, we propose. It warrants a reasonable time to be considered, but it does not need more than six months. This bill is broader than just shipping companies and our transport network. This is about the cost of doing business in Australia. This is about our sugar industry, our cement industry, aluminium, mineral sands, the resource sector, fertiliser industry, gypsum and petrol refineries to name but a few.

The government would like to send this bill to the Senate economics committee for a report date after the winter break, which would provide adequate time for consideration of this. If the opposition has proposed a date between that which we are nominating and next year, I could have understood that, but they are not. They have nominated 2016. That is unreasonable. We are proposing that this legislation is referred to the Economics Legislation Committee for report on 12 August 2015. We think that is an entirely reasonable proposition.