Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I, on behalf of the coalition, want to indicate to the Senate that the coalition will be supporting the disallowance motion, as we have done twice in the past. We do it for the reasons which Senator Xenophon has very clearly and precisely put. One wonders why the government continues to regale the Senate with these regulations. This is at least the second, and I suspect the third, time that they have been brought back in much the same form on each occasion, and on each occasion we have indicated at some length that the opposition does not support the strict liability element on pilots—that is, making it a strict liability offence for pilots if someone else happens to open the door. I know that the shadow minister, Mr Truss, has had a number of discussions with the minister or his staff and has tried to negotiate a way through this. We have been given some verbal assurances—that really do not go far enough, in any case—but nothing in writing.

It is indicative of the sheer arrogance of this government that they are bringing these regulations back in the same form as they have before. It is the same arrogance that has led this government to introduce a huge mining tax on Australian industry, a tax which will destroy the jobs in my state of Queensland and Western Australia in particular. There was no consultation with the mining companies. Mr Rudd looked at the polls, realised he had to do something dramatic and so brought in this tax without any understanding of it and without any consultation. It was certainly not on the recommendation of Mr Henry. Mr Henry has subsequently said, again I say with some respect, that it is a tax that should be repeated across other industries in Australia, and that must start the alarm bells ringing.

This arrogance is also clear from the way the government simply paid Telstra whatever they asked for to get the NBN through. And why? Not because the NBN had proved its worth. Not because there had ever been any cost-benefit analysis done, but because Mr Rudd noticed the opinion polls and needed something to distract attention from them. Many commentators are saying today, and I particularly refer to Terry McCrann, that Telstra are laughing all the way to the bank. They got more out of Mr Rudd on the NBN proposal than they ever might have expected. And why? Simply because Mr Rudd was going downhill in the polls and needed some sort of a circuit breaker.