Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Acting Deputy President Furner, I will not keep you long. I indicate that we will be supporting this referral. But I have been sitting in this chamber for a period of time listening to this debate, and I did listen quite carefully to Senator Abetz when he went through at length the fact that they had never referred provisions of bills to a references committee. However, I have been in this place for a period of time now, and I was here when they had control of the Senate—and I am sure that others in this chamber remember this as well—and the then government actually changed the whole committee system so that they could in fact control the committee system and so did not need to bother referring things to a legislation or a references committee. If we remember right, they got rid of references committees and just had standing committees. So it is very disingenuous of the Leader of the Government in the Senate to say that they have never done this. Of course they have, because, during that entire time that they had control of the Senate and they changed the committee system, all those bills were effectively referred to committees that were both references committees and legislation committees.

So the Leader of the Government in the Senate should be articulating correctly what really happened during that time. Perhaps he could go and count those bills that were referred. I have done a quick check of just one of those committees, the committee that is very close to my heart, the community affairs committee, and a large number of bills were referred to that particular committee, which was effectively functioning as a references committee as well. So, when he is laying into the Greens and the opposition, he really should make sure that he gets those facts correct.