Alan Eggleston (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Not at all unusual. The Senate is a great institution that is recognised as a house of review around the world and it will continue to play that role in the Australian parliament when the changes which the government proposes to the Senate committee system are implemented and put in place. I am sure that in reality Senator Chris Evans knows full well that what the government is doing is no more than bringing the Australian Senate committee system into line with the committee systems which exist in other great parliaments of the world, including the United States Congress, the House of Commons and other congresses such as the National Assembly of Indonesia, where there is a single committee system in place. The dual committee system which we have had in this country to this day has been something of an aberration, not duplicated and not found anywhere else in the world.

When Senator Evans was speaking, he talked about how the government will determine the ‘what’—that is, what is inquired into; the ‘how’—that is, what an inquiry is about; the ‘when’—that is, when the committees hold meetings; and the ‘who’—that is, who would be there—under this new system. He seemed to imply that somehow the ‘what’, the ‘how’, the ‘when’ and the ‘who’ would be different with our new system from what they were under the old system. I really do not think that is the case at all.

The Senate carries out its house of review functions through the committee system. If you think about it, the estimates process is not going to change at all under this new system. We will still have three lots of estimates during the year. In fact, in the last lot of estimates, in May, there were eight committees and they each had four days of hearings. So, effectively, there were 32 hearing days on which to question the government at budget estimates. At estimates we are still going to have the heads of the departments and the head of each program. The senators, just as they usually do and have for all of the eight years that I have been here, will be free to ask any question they like, more or less, of the heads of every program within every department.

So the estimates process is not going to change at all. Estimates will be there. It is one of the great features of the Australian parliament that we do have this very rigorous budget estimates system. It is, I believe, not equalled anywhere else in the world. That is not going to change. I cannot see that the proposed alterations to the committee system will in any way diminish the effectiveness of the estimates process.

Then there is the question of referrals of matters to the committees for investigation. Let us look at how that process works. Senator Evans talked about the ‘what’—that is, what is referred to committees. What is referred to committees—the subject of referrals—is determined by the Senate. The Senate refers matters to committees. That process will continue. It will be the Senate that refers subjects to the committees for their inquiries.

Senator Evans’ next heading was the ‘how’—how the inquiries are conducted. The manner in which they are conducted now is very much a matter for the individual committees to decide. The committees decide where they will hold their hearings, where they will travel to and who they will invite to come along as witnesses. Usually, when you think about it, the secretariats have a suggested list of people who might be good witnesses because they are the people who are known to be involved in whatever the subject matter of the inquiry is.

The Senate committees advertise, as we all know. In a big advertisement in the Australian every two weeks, every Senate inquiry is advertised. People who are interested in whatever the subject is are invited to make submissions. That process will continue to apply under this new system. The committees will decide how their inquiries are conducted. Senator Evans’ question about the ‘how’ and his implication that, under this new system, the method of conducting inquiries will somehow be corrupted is quite wrong. Nothing, in my opinion, will change very much at all.

Then there is the question of the ‘when’. Senator Evans raised the ‘when’ question—that is, how often the committees meet. Again, how often the committees hold hearings is a question for the members of the committees, Madam Acting Deputy President Moore, as you well know. The committees determine how often they will meet. Just as they do now, so they will continue to do in the future.