Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I begin in this motion to exempt bills from the cut-off by having a look at what Odgers says about the cut-off. I think it is important that we just have a bit of a history lesson in relation to this because it is important to put this in context. The commentary in Odgers says:

Over many years the Senate was concerned with the end-of-sittings rush of legislation, the concentration of government bills which occurs in the last weeks of a period of sittings and which results in legislation being passed with greater haste than during the earlier part of the sittings, and with inadequate time for proper consideration.

It goes on to say:

The causes of this phenomenon are not clear; a view frequently expressed was that ministers or departments deliberately delayed the introduction of legislation until late in a period of sittings in the hope that it would be passed without proper scrutiny. This suspicion was reinforced by ministers regularly claiming that all government bills accumulated at the end of sittings were urgent. There were often grounds for scepticism about these claims, particularly the failure to proclaim legislation stated to be urgent at the time of its passage.

It is interesting to put that in context. Measures were introduced to ameliorate unintended consequences back in 1986 by having a deadline and then a double deadline, which is the rule that we have now, initiated by then Senator Christabel Chamarette from the Greens in WA. The commentary in Odgers is:

… that the Senate’s deadline may have alleviated the situation, having regard to the change from two to three sitting periods per year …

However, the figures given in Odgersand I think it has actually got worse since the time of publication—suggest that the problem has tended to creep back but is probably due to the readiness with which the Senate exempts bills from the operation of the standing orders at the request of the government.

Let us put this in perspective. This rule is about not being caught by surprise, not being caught by having to look at legislation on the hop; it is about having a proper level of scrutiny. That is the Senate’s job. So my position in relation to the reasons to exempt the political donations legislation and the Australian Business Investment Partnership Bill 2009 and the consequential amendments bill from the cut-off are different, for those reasons. Firstly, in relation to the issue of political donations: the government introduced its amendments in December last year. There has been a joint committee looking at the whole issue of funding and disclosure reform and it has been the subject of considerable debate. It was dealt with in the Senate last week. There was a debate with respect to that. The government did not succeed; I supported the government in relation to the measures because I believe it is important that we deal with this first tranche of reforms—the level of donations before there is disclosure, foreign donations and related matters. I think it is important that we deal with these measures. I agree with the substance of what Senator Faulkner was saying. I do not think we should delay it.

The issue here is: should the bill now before the chamber be exempted from the cut-off? If you accept what the cut-off provisions are all about—about not being forced to deal with legislation you have not had time to consider, about not dealing with a matter with haste and without proper consideration—then I do not think the cut-off provisions were intended to deal with a bill such as this that has already been dealt with. The government is entitled to bring it back in. My view is that we ought to deal with it again. I believe it is an important and urgent piece of legislation. The opposition say that the cut-off should apply here; I do not believe that is what the cut-off is about. Therefore, when it comes to a vote with respect to the political donations bill I will be supporting the exemption to the cut-off. We ought to be able to deal with it; there is no surprise here.

The Australian Business Investment Partnership Bill is a different matter. Firstly, I have very grave concerns about the way this bill has been handled—or perhaps I should say ‘mishandled’—by the government. The Prime Minister first announced the proposed creation of the Australian Business Investment Partnership on 24 January this year, some seven weeks ago. In his speech about the bank, the Prime Minister made the issue sound particularly urgent. As he saw it, the government needed to act quickly so as to secure the future of jobs in the construction industry. However, the legislation relating to this bill was introduced to the House of Representatives on 12 March, just six days ago. We now find ourselves in the last sitting week of the session being told we have to vote on this immediately. The substance of the bill is quite different from what was first announced by the Prime Minister on 24 January.

I have two problems with what the government is trying to do with this bill. The first is pretty simple: bad planning on the government’s part should not consistently have to constitute an emergency on the Senate’s part. Time and time again we are being told that bills that have been kicking around for weeks or months suddenly need to be voted on immediately regardless of the level of scrutiny those bills have received and regardless of the lack of staffing resources that, particularly, crossbench senators must endure—and the resource levels are pitiful. Since my time in the Senate the government has requested 14 separate motions to exempt 38 bills, none of which were refused, and now we have another motion today to exempt another four bills. These bills have included the economic stimulus package and now this particular bill.

My team of two staffers here in Canberra are expected to be across every piece of legislation that goes through this place. If they are not, I am not doing my job. They do a good job, but do they deserve four or five hours sleep a night? I believe that we are being unfairly pressured and I hope this is not a tactic by the government to run us ragged in the hope that we will simply vote bills through without scrutiny. Let me make this really simple: if you try this tactic it will fail. I will insist on doing my job properly or I will refuse to vote. For the last two days my staff have attempted to work with Treasury to organise a full briefing on this matter and, simply, we have been flat out with the IR legislation and the alcopops legislation. I understand that, as I speak now, one of my staff is currently receiving a briefing from Treasury in relation to this bill. When you consider the scope of this bill and the $26 billion contingent liability that it may expose Australian taxpayers to, I do not want to do this on the fly. I think it is appropriate that there be a degree of scrutiny with respect to this bill.

To consider the context of the government’s guarantee to the banks—the guaranteed bank deposits—that was announced on 12 October, let us look at what some of the commentators said back then. Sam Wylie, a research fellow at the Melbourne Business School, said in the Financial Review of 14 November that the ‘big four’ need to give us something back because of the impact it could have on credit markets and the transparency of the banks. Fast forward to a commentary by Deborah Ralston, the Acting Director of the Melbourne Centre for Financial Studies and a director of the listed company Mortgage Choice in the Financial Review of 11 March. The headline says it all: ‘Guarantee has given big banks the whip hand’. She complains that there is a real issue about the tap being turned off for business lending for smaller businesses as a result of the bank guarantee. She writes:

The net effect of reduced business lending is costly and has an adverse accelerator effect on aggregate demand. In a normal situation, competitive forces would moderate this tendency, but with the banks being the only game in town, we appear to be back to the old credit rationing of pre-deregulation times. Would the banks be so risk-averse if they had more competition?

She goes on to say that there has been a loss of competition in the credit market as a result of the bank guarantee—which I supported, but there have been adverse consequences, unintended consequences. My fear with this piece of legislation is that we will get the same problems arising and to expect the Senate to deal with such a major piece of legislation in such little time, without appropriate scrutiny, I believe is simply not adequate. I have not been given the time and resources to deal with this bill.

I can indicate that if the government wants to come back—and this harks to the proposal put by Senator Brown on behalf of the Greens, which is to have an extra sitting week—I will be prepared to do that. But, right now, to expect to have this bill dealt with, to seek exemption from the cut-off, I believe is unreasonable. It is my belief that when you are talking about a $26 billion exposure for the taxpayers of Australia this bill ought to go off to the Senate Standing Committee on Economics for appropriate scrutiny. I feel that I am in an untenable situation with respect to this motion to exempt the bills from the cut-off. Therefore, I have no choice but to vote against it, denying exemption from the cut-off in relation to these bills.