Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I accept that admonishment, Mr Acting Deputy President. Here we have got three recommendations from the government senators on this committee to change this piece of legislation. So even government senators do not think that this legislation is up to scratch. Even government senators think that this legislation needs further change.

This incompetent, dysfunctional, weak and divided government, which is treating this Senate chamber with absolute contempt, wants all senators to consider this legislation, this set of proposals, without having had the benefit of properly considering both the recommendations by government senators and the recommendations that were made in the very good dissenting report by coalition senators. I suspect that this will be the first time that Senator Marshall will be able to read the coalition senators' dissenting report, because it is not usual practice that government senators are provided with a copy of dissenting reports before they are tabled. There are some very good recommendations in the coalition senators' dissenting report. The first is:

That the Senate oppose this Bill.

The second is:

That the government undertakes a comprehensive and co-ordinated legislative approach to combating fraudulent phoenix activity that includes an appropriate definition of 'fraudulent phoenix activity'.

It might well have been that the eloquent words of Senator Bushby, who is the Deputy Chair of the Senate Economics Legislation Committee, might have persuaded Senator Marshall to change his mind, or, if not Senator Marshall, perhaps Senator Siewert. Who knows? The point is that the reason we do these reports, the reason we have these inquiries into legislation, is so that the Senate has a proper opportunity to assess the legislation based on the judgment that was made by one of its committees.

Recommendation 3 by coalition senators is:

That regulators including ASIC ensure that they fully utilise existing legislative and regulatory powers to combat fraudulent phoenix activity.

One thing that became very clear during the inquiry, as I understand it, is that ASIC actually already have a lot of powers that at present they are not utilising, either because they have not got the resources or because they are not appropriately prioritising those activities. They have already got a lot of powers that they could use to better target fraudulent phoenix activity. Forever increasing regulatory powers, forever increasing red tape, does not do anything to fix the problem any better. If you have got an organisation that is not utilising its powers now, either because it has not got the resources or because it has not got the appropriate prioritised agenda, that organisation will not do anything just because the government, with the flick of a pen, increases its powers and increases red tape.

Recommendation 4 from the coalition senators' part of the report is:

That any proposed broad new powers for regulators such as ASIC that would apply to corporations and directors that are not engaged in fraudulent phoenix activity be subject to proper public scrutiny and debate rather than be bundled into legislation that is supposed to apply to only one discrete policy area.

I could not have said it better myself. What a sensible recommendation by the coalition members on the Senate Economics Legislation Committee. But, of course, senators across the chamber will not have had the opportunity to properly consider the findings and recommendations that were made by coalition senators, because nobody in this chamber has actually had an opportunity to review the coalition senators' dissenting report and recommendations.

I finish where I started. This is a serious policy issue. This is an issue that the coalition actually wants to see properly addressed. This legislation does not do that. For the government now to come in in another fit of incompetence, to abort proper process and to force the Senate to deal with this legislation without actually having had an opportunity to consider a report that was put together, at its request, by a committee of the Senate is just completely outrageous and inappropriate. It is just another demon­stration of an arrogant, incompetent govern­ment on its last legs, a government which clearly does not know where it is going these days, a government that is so focused on itself that it does not know how to focus on the public interest anymore. This is a government that is so weak, so incompetent, so divided, so deeply dysfunctional. It is time for this government to go. It is time for this government to face the Australian people so that the Australian people can pass judgment on this terrible and ongoing Labor Party incompetence.