Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak after that tirade from Senator Cameron—and, for the public's listening pleasure: that is about the third time I have had the pleasure of that particular tirade; I chaired Senate estimates when the department came before us and Senator Cameron had a lot of leeway and a lot of conversations with officials around these particular issues—similarly, last week, during the inquiry. So whilst Senator Cameron wants to argue the toss, he did not actually address the question before the chair.

When I look at the reports that we have been talking about, I note that these bills were inquired into last week with a one-day inquiry—fully consultative, with all the usual players. The Greens were actually a no-show. It is funny that they are supporting the opposition on this reference, because when I sat down to chair the inquiry into this bill by the legislation committee there were name cards for Senator Rhiannon and Senator Siewert but neither were there. When I look through the report into this legislation, there is a dissenting report from the opposition, rightly stating their long-held objections on industrial relations matters—it is an ideological issue, as Senator Cameron touched on—and stating the opposition's perspective on this and the other bill we inquired into that day. What is not in the report is any comment from the Greens on this piece of legislation, and I would ask whether we are here today putting this reference to the Senate Education and Employment References Committee simply because the Greens could not quite get it together to get their comments on the legislation before the committee.

As to Senator Cameron, I want to address one of Senator Cameron's comments about abuse of the Senate. We actually saw that today. When we talk about checks and balances in this place, there is no greater check and balance on government in the Senate than the Privileges Committee. It is interesting to note that earlier this week the opposition sided with the Greens in their desire to change the balance of the Privileges Committee. When the opposition was the government, a few months ago they rejected that proposition—as rightly they should. It is a check and balance for opposition on the government of the day in this place. So when you want to talk about abuse of the Senate, I do not think it gets much higher than that as an attack on the integrity of the Senate.

I will now turn to the matter and the reference before us. It is in my role as Chair of the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee that I want to highlight the blatant disregard that the ALP-Greens continuing alliance has for this Senate convention—and, indeed, for the will of the Australian people. At our last sitting, the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Bill 2013 was referred to the Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee for inquiry, as is usual and appropriate. There has been a lot of noise around the haste of this inquiry. I think the road of the previous government is littered with examples, but I would actually like to turn to an example which, in looking at earlier instances of oppositions referring bills to references committees, I came upon, with the good help of the Senate clerks: the Senate Economics References Committee's Report on Consideration of the Workplace Relations and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 1996.

Back then, the reason given by the Labor Party in complaining about why they had to put it through the references committee was that, No. 1: it was an explicit breach of the government's pre-election commitments, that the then coalition government had not explicitly made a core promise, if you like, to the electorate prior to the election that they were actually going to look at changes to the IR law. I think that the issue on the table was unfair dismissal laws for small business. So because the coalition back then did not make it a clear election promise, the No. 1 issue for the newly minted opposition in 1996 was that it breached the government's pre-election commitments. I quote, 'At no time prior to the election did the coalition foreshadow an exemption for small business from the unfair dismissal laws'. That was the No. 1 reason why it had to go off to the references committee.

Nos 2 and 3 reasons were that it was unnecessary and unfair. I think that goes, essentially, to the nature of the discussion before us—the content, if you like, of the issues. The coalition and the Labor Party are never going to see eye to eye on industrial relations matters. It is a polarising topic for us, and that is why we have democratic processes—to help us, as political entities in this nation, to sort through particularly polarising issues. We have processes, we have elections, we have parliaments and we have committees to protect the people from the very edges of our ideology. I think that sending a bill that has already been inquired into—not once but a couple of times—and that was foreshadowed 17 months prior—everybody knew it was coming—to a references committee, with the help of the Greens, to ensure that they get to ask their questions, is an abuse.

Essentially, this reference is unnecessary and unwarranted because it is a delaying tactic by an opposition that is still in denial about an election held many months ago. They are unwilling to accept the clear will of the Australian electorate, that was very aware of this policy intent by the coalition government—17 months prior; very aware of what we intended to do in this space. And yet—and I know you cannot believe it and I know you do not want to believe it—they still cast their votes in the manner in which they did. That ended up with the government actually being able to put before the parliament the election promises that we made in our desire to keep up with the Australian people.

The reference before us seeks to investigate the potential impact of the amendments to the registered organisations act to interfere with ongoing operation of registered organisations in Australia. It also wants to examine how potential amendments will impede the ability of employees of registered organisations to carry out their duties. I am not quite sure how we think this evidence that we will get before this inquiry will be any different to the evidence submitted in previous inquiries and, indeed, in the inquiry conducted last week. And it is good to see Senator Lines in the chamber, because she was there last Tuesday. The Greens were not, but Senator Lines was there, as was Senator Cameron and Senator Tillem, prosecuting the case for the opposition. But in terms of who actually presented, I am not sure we will get any different perspectives.

I will just read through the submissions received for the inquiry. I think there is a bit of smoke and mirrors going on, that this was what I think Senator Wong likes to call a 'quick and dirty inquiry'. But we got a fair number of submissions, reflecting the full diversity and ideological positions of this particular area. We had the Queensland Nurses Union, the Timber Merchants Association of Victoria, the Maritime Union of Australia, Master Builders Australia, the Department of Employment, the Master Plumbers and Mechanical Services Association of Australia, the Australian Industry Group, the Pharmacy Guild of Australia—and I really appreciate Senator Cameron getting in behind the Pharmacy Guild—the Australian Council of Trade Unions, the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Fair Work Commission, the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation, Unions New South Wales, the Australian Public Transport Industrial Association, the Australian Community Services Employers Association, the Finance Sector Union of Australia, the Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce, the Timber Trade Industrial Association, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and the National Union of Workers. That is a pretty comprehensive list!

I think that all of us in this place who have argued about industrial relations approaches could pretty much back it in; we have all the usual players, and some. We have the whole gamut of perspectives on this particular issue and, indeed, we were able to prosecute that through those who appeared before the committee on Tuesday. They included the department and, obviously, the ACTU, who headed down even though they were in an executive meeting—and that was very good—AiG, ACCI et cetera. So we were able to actually investigate. They also all took on, kindly, some questions on notice and got the answers back to us in a timely manner. And so it was a full process for an inquiry into a bill that we have actually looked into more than once—if we think about private senators' business in the last parliament—and we produced the report. And yet, here we are seeking to refer it on.

When I go to the reference itself—the potential impacts and impeding employers—some of the issues are what the inquiry turned up. We looked at disclosure requirements. We looked at the level of regulation and, indeed, the minister has been persuaded, as he said. If only all ministers would consult as widely as this minister has with the range of stakeholders that he has, not only in coming to a position around the evidence before the committee on this particular bill but, indeed, in his construction of the policy we took to the federal election in the first place.

If you go to the coalition policy document on this area you can see that we did not just talk to our friends. We did not just talk to the people who agreed with our position on this matter. We went to a wide circle and tried to get an holistic perspective on how to fix the issues with the registered organisations act and to fix, as we said, some of the mistakes in the earlier iterations.

We also looked within the report at increased accountability issues. Training of officers was raised by some of the submitters, as was the engagement of the ILO—the International Labour Organization—and how this bill addresses that. We looked at the Registered Organisations Commissioner and the special account and we also looked at the financial implications and the financial penalties for noncompliance. So we did not just tick-and-flick this. We actually listened to our submitters, took their evidence on board, highlighted the issues that they raised and then made some recommendations. It is those recommendations that I commend to the Senate.

So, rather than pursue this delaying tactic so that maybe the Greens can get to the next inquiry in the references, we should actually get on with doing what we have been elected to do. We are in government and this is a core part of the election commitment that we brought to the federal election. Convention would say that if you are elected to government you get to pursue your legislative agenda, particularly in an area where we are so ideologically opposed, where the process of parliament and the mechanisms we have in place in our democracy save us from our worst selves. In referring this to a references committee, we have sought to simply delay and not facilitate the people's will, as much as we may not appreciate it. I am confident that what I heard from Senator Cameron in the last 20 minutes, what I heard from him for a few hours last Tuesday and what I heard for lots of hours last week during Senate estimates we will hear again and there will be nothing new under the sun. The ACTU will critique the methodology, the department will make its defence of the methodology and we will end up in the same place, where the only thing happening is delay around this crucial piece of legislation to fix Labor's issues.

I go to delivering on our election commitments and what an important aspect that is. Senator Abetz mentioned the history of referring bills to references committees. Senator Siewert mentioned earlier that there were a whole lot of other bills referred to references committees for inquiry, but they were from minor parties—from the Australian Greens, from the Democrats and from Senator Xenophon, for instance, not from oppositions. Our whole parliamentary system is set up where we have a government and an opposition and minor parties come and go, as this table reflects, and they have used various tactics in order to flesh out areas of issues. But there have only been three other times when an opposition has sought to put a bill before a references committee of the Senate, and that was on Telstra in 1996, on the Workplace Relations and Other Legislation Amendment Bill in 1996—the report I read from earlier—and on the Gene Technology Bill. Maybe there is a little deja vu here. Maybe a similar, newly elected opposition were struggling with the same realities that this opposition in the Senate is struggling with: irrelevancy and a legislative agenda that the Australian people are no longer in favour of and have made that very, very clear.

Senator Wong put this reference to the Senate. She did not use the same excuse, if you like, that the minority Senate report in 1997 used—that it was a breach of a government's pre-election commitment—because she cannot. So what excuse do the opposition use for breaching process in the way that they have breached it? They argue the merits of the bill—what they like about the piece of legislation and what they do not like about the piece of legislation. They do not actually address why they have done it, because the fact is that no such reason exists. The bill delivers on a clearly stated government election promise. It is legislation that has been effectively examined twice in 12 months, because we have debated a not dissimilar private member's bill. The issues have been raised and they have been wholeheartedly canvassed in this place, in our committees and, indeed, in the construction of the coalition's policy itself.

Let's face it, if we go over the last six years this is in contrast with policy and legislation that was not widely consulted on, that we only talked to our friends about, or we might have got a few famous people in a room with a piece of white paper and some whiteboard markers—there is our legislative framework for the following six years after a 2020 Summit. No—the process we have taken on policy construction, legislation development and legislative program development is with careful consideration, a consultative process, because we seek, as this minister seeks, to govern for all Australians, not just those who voted for us. That is why we consult with whom we do.

We received 20 submissions from unions and employer organisations, so I am not quite sure what the reference is getting at—what else we can dig out. It is a delaying tactic. Because of this reference the Senate cannot actually debate the legislation, so we will have to come back on the last sitting day of March. The bills will not be before us until budget week or beyond. So it is simply a delaying tactic, which I understand when you are as ideologically opposed as the opposition is. However, we must accept the will of the people, and we could not have been clearer about our legislative agenda on this.

I note that Senator Wong this morning withdrew the other inquiry we had last week through the Senate Education and Employment References Committee, in reference to the Building and Construction Industry (Improving Productivity) Bill. That reference was withdrawn, but I note that Senator Cameron just cannot stop talking about it—