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

by leave—this report into recent allegations relating to conditions and circumstances of the regional processing centre in Nauru is, regrettably—unlike Senator Fawcett said—not an example of the parliament working together in the best interests of the people of Australia. This issue of what happens on Nauru has been dealt with by so many different committees, and the amount of time that has been wasted by the parliament—and, indeed, the money wasted by the parliament in pursuing these fixations of the Greens political party—really needs to be exposed.

As this report shows and as is normal in these sorts of inquiries, the recommendations are meaningless and most of them, where they are serious, have already been implemented by the government or those responsible for the Manus Island report. I lament that the Senate committee system, which used to be highly regarded, has been hijacked, particularly by the Greens political party and with the help of the Labor Party, in dealing with issues not once but twice and thrice, and even more inquiry is proposed.

In this particular instance, the Moss review, which was properly equipped to investigate these issues—an independent inquiry, not a political inquiry—conducted by a respected now retired senior public servant, with all the resources available to an inquiry, looked into all matters related to the Manus Island regional processing centre. Mr Moss made certain recommendations, which the government and those involved accepted and implemented. I understand there is a proposal to look again at Nauru.

This inquiry took a lot of time, a lot of committee secretariat time and effort, to explore and investigate things that had already been looked at by Mr Moss in an independent inquiry, had already been looked at by the New Guinea police or the police in charge of Manus Island and by the authorities in Australia who had all the resources to look at this. Yet we set up this committee consisting of politicians, running certain political processes and goals and procedures, just for the purpose of trying to score political points. That is fine—perhaps some would say parliament is a place where you should attempt to score political points. But when it involves the amount of time and effort of the secretariat staff and the money of the Department of the Senate in supporting those staff, we really need to take a look at this.

Most of the issues related in this report were actually canvassed at the relevant Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee estimates hearings reports. Nothing new came out of this report that was not extracted at either estimates, by Mr Moss, or by the other authorities that looked at the issue. You will see, Mr Acting Deputy President, that the dissenting report by the government senators to this inquiry clearly shows that most of the recommendations of the majority of this committee had already been implemented. It was a complete, abject and utter waste of time and money. Yet someone was indicating to me we are going to have another inquiry into Manus Island.

For a start, it is another country. It is a processing organisation put in place, I might say, not by the Abbott government but by the previous Labor government, the last government of Mr Rudd. It became clear that when Mr Rudd set up this regional processing centre arrangement, at Nauru, enough thought was not put into it. It was done in haste, approaching an election. Mr Rudd had at last worked out that the Australian people wanted the boats stopped and one of the ways of doing this was to set up these regional processing centres. They had worked so effectively in the time of the Howard government. But Mr Rudd—better late than never.

A lot of the problems that arose at Manus Island, and I accept there were some, were all a result—and the evidence clearly showed this—of the hurried nature in which this regional processing centre was put together, the hurried nature of which relevant personnel and managing agents were put into effect.

When the government changed in 2013, the relevant minister, Mr Morrison, immediately set about fixing things on Manus Island and established a number of well-resourced, serious inquiries by people who knew what they were talking about. As a result of those serious, well-resourced inquiries, a number of recommendations were made. Indeed, the department itself clearly understood that things that were put together in haste by Mr Rudd had to be improved and all of those things were done and put in place. This inquiry has actually contributed zero, zilch, nothing. It has given one of the Greens senators, who is prominent in this, another platform to appear on TV with emotive language and a good five-second grab for the TV headlines.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sea Patrol?

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

The Sea Patrol example—I do not want to be personal about this, Senator Canavan, but you perhaps know who I am talking about. It is the person who understood that all of our border protection arrangements were what was seen on a TV story called Sea Patrol. These inquiries give those sorts of senators a bit of a platform, as I say, for the five-second grab on the evening TV news. But, as a serious use of the Senate's time and resources, this report and this whole inquiry get one out of 10—and that is generous.

I only raise these issues because Senate committee reports have, in most of my time here, been highly regarded because they have, by and large, been bipartisan. There have been one or two exceptions, but, by and large, they have been bipartisan and they have been serious inquiries into matters of policy. This inquiry and a number of others along this line, set up by the same protagonists, I might say, were simply set up, it seems to me, to give particular people a bit of a platform on which to conduct their normal emotional—and fairly standard, I might say—responses to these issues. If they achieved anything, you could accept them, but I have to say that this report clearly demonstrates that the whole committee exercise in this instance was a complete and abject waste of money and time. It was a select committee, but it involved senators who were busily involved in other serious committees.

I only raise these things because this sort of approach continues. I call upon the Labor Party to have some sense about which of the Greens' referrals they support. We cannot keep going on having these inquiries and reports that take us absolutely nowhere and give one or two senators an opportunity to grandstand but achieve nothing as far as policy and governance of this nation are concerned. I appeal to the sensible people in the Labor Party to think twice about supporting the Greens every time they bring up these ridiculous inquiries that they know, as everyone knows, will go absolutely nowhere. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.