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

I come from North Queensland, as I never stop telling people. Some of the big industries up there, such as sugar, aluminium and cement, are industries which use coastal shipping. Because of the actions of the Labor government in previous years, industries are being forced to ignore Australian product and import product—in sugar, in cement and in lots of things—because they simply cannot afford the cost of domestic shipping in Australia. This has been an issue for a long, long period of time and the government intends to do something about it. The opposition will no doubt oppose it, but, more than oppose it, they want to delay any real consideration of the bill out into the never-never. Suggesting that this be put out to next year is just incredibly dishonest. It shows that the Labor Party have no real interest in it. They are frightened that an earlier consideration by the committee and report to the Senate would encourage the crossbenchers to support the government's legislation. Labor do not want to take their chances, so they put it out into the never-never.

Senator Moore's contribution was full of hypocritical jargon. She was talking about sending things to another committee when a different committee is looking at it. Of course, the Labor Party have just facilitated another one of the abuses of the committee system by referring a matter that was being dealt with by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee—the Monis letters. It had come up in estimates and a request had been made. The legislation committee had moved to have a spillover so that people could be questioned about that. But, in the meantime, the Labor Party introduced a motion to send this to a references committee—the exact same issue.

As I said earlier today, this makes just a complete mockery of what was once a revered and respected Senate committee system. When I first joined the Senate 25 years ago, Senate committees worked cooperatively. They worked in a nonpartisan way. They actually achieved results that were good for governments. They alerted governments to obvious errors. Be they Liberal or Labor governments, the Senate committee system used to work in a bipartisan way. Today, I say with a lot of regret, the Senate committee system has just become a tool in the armoury of the Labor Party and the Greens political party to use them for purely political purposes—no real gain and no real policy commitment but purely for political purposes. That is what brings these committees into disrepute.

I think that Senator Fifield's motion is a good one, but perhaps I could foreshadow a further amendment that would, as Senator Lambie suggests, be a compromise that would involve something between August and next year. Rather than me foreshadowing an amendment, perhaps others in the chamber will. (Time expired)