Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Hansard source

I want to put on the public record that, while the minister was gracious in the great bulk of his remarks, he did regrettably stray into some partisan politics about two-thirds of the way through. Putting that to one side, I therefore need to correct the record in relation to some of these matters.

The first thing I would say is that the opposition does support these changes. We have some concerns about the potential differential between the Senate and the other place in relation to these entitlements. We certainly do not want the ability of senators to communicate to be at a different level to those of members in the other place. I think there is some inherent risk in these regulations for that to occur. Nevertheless, we will not be opposing these changes.

I do, however, want to make it quite clear that it was the Howard government which actually put a cap on printing. Up until 2002, initially under the Hawke government and then in the early years of the Howard government, there was actually no cap. In 2002, we moved to put a cap on this. So we can assure you, Madam Acting Deputy President, that we come to this debate with very clean hands indeed because we were the ones who put the cap in place.

I think there was some unfortunate reflection in the minister’s comments on the changes in 2005-06 along the lines of, ‘We must never return to these dark days.’ We made sure in 2002 that there would be a cap and that those dark days were gone. I think that, with the greatest respect for the minister, even he would be aware that there has been a dramatic growth in the number of electors in most lower house seats these days. Our view at that time was that it was quite reasonable for all members of the House of Representatives, irrespective of their political party, to communicate according to that growth in the number of electors. So we are not going to be pilloried in relation to that slight increase, particularly when we were the ones who first introduced the cap.