Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I was not, but perhaps I mistook your eyebrows. They were motionless. I stand corrected. You are impassive in the chair. But you may well have raised an eyebrow at the fact that the Australian Labor Party would seek to delay, frustrate, the consideration of the Registration of Deaths Abroad Amendment Bill. This is what the Australian Labor Party do time and again—they use procedural tactics to delay the consideration of legislation. They use procedural tactics to put off the opportunity for a chamber to address the legislation before it. They use these tactics, they delay the transmission of a bill to the Senate and then the Labor Party jump to the other side of the argument to say, 'Why, oh why hasn't the Senate addressed this bill yet?' when it is their own tactics in the other place that are preventing this legislation from being debated in the Australian Senate.

Let me take a moment to talk to the chamber about the Registration of Deaths Abroad Amendment Bill, which is the bill that Labor seeks to frustrate. What the bill seeks to do is to amend the Registration of Deaths Abroad Act 1984 to:

… enable the minister to appoint any state or territory registrar as the Registrar of Deaths Abroad; validate the prior appointment of the ACT Registrar-General as the registrar and validate any previous registrations of deaths; enable the registrar to register death that could have been registered under the law of a state or territory, where the state or territory concerned has provided notice that it will not register a death; and ensure that only the registrar can register deaths.

That is the summation from the Senate Table Office bills list, and I defy any colleague here to nominate another bill that has come before this place over the previous three years or in the coming three years, that is less controversial. This is the standard of the Australian Labor Party today. This is how low the Australian Labor Party have stooped—that they are seeking to delay consideration in the House of Representatives of the Registration of Deaths Abroad Amendment Bill 2016. Yet, as I said, Labor have been running around this building saying—and Senator Wong made a contribution before inferring the same—that somehow the government had not planned to have legislation addressed in the Senate today. What rot!

Let me point out for those opposite something that may have escaped them: for legislation to be considered by the Senate, it needs to have first passed through the Australian House of Representatives. The Australian Labor Party are doing what they always do, which is to seek to be on both sides of an argument at the same time. On the one hand, they seek to delay passage in the House of Representatives and, when they have some success in that, they then run around to anyone who is listening and might not be following the proceedings closely in the two chambers and say, 'Gee, isn't it awful that the government don't have legislation to debate in the Senate?' when the reason for that is those opposite. It is breathtaking. It is not something that I, during my previous incarnation as the Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate, would have sought to do, firstly. Secondly, I would not have been so hypocritical as to seek to delay passage and then blame that on my opponents on the other side. It is seriously peculiar.

So we could well be debating the Registration of Deaths Abroad Amendment Bill 2016 and we could also be debating the Primary Industries Levies and Charges Collection Amendment Bill 2016 but, again, the Australian Labor Party in the other place have sought to deny that opportunity to the Australian Senate. It is unsurprising, therefore, that my colleagues on this side of the chamber have been contributing to the address-in-reply debate. I think numbers of colleagues would have assumed that that opportunity to contribute in the address-in-reply debate might have taken place tomorrow or the day after or in a couple of weeks time, because the address-in-reply debate is one that, historically, goes over many, many weeks. But the reason why colleagues have been contributing today is that we have not been given the opportunity to consider the legislation that we were intending to consider, courtesy of the activities of the Australian Labor Party in the other place.

But I do wonder when Labor will start to live up to their post-election rhetoric. There was a cavalcade of Labor figures from the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Shorten, down who said that they wanted this to be a cooperative parliament, that they wanted this to be a parliament that worked, that the Australian people do not have time for petty games, that the Australian people want their elected representatives to get together and talk to each other to make this place and the place over the other side of the building work. We all heard that and we were tempted on this side to take that at face value. Indeed, we did initially take it at face value, that the opposition leader wanted this to be a parliament which was marked by cooperation, but from the first day of sitting all evidence has been to the contrary. From the first day of sitting, almost every word and every deed of the Australian Labor Party has not fulfilled that promise and that commitment made by Mr Shorten to have this as a Senate that would work.

I have spent a fair bit of time through the course of today on the phone to members of the Australian press gallery and in interviews explaining exactly what it is that the Australian Labor Party have been up to today, that they have indeed been talking out of both sides of their mouths at the same time, as they so often do. In this case, they have been talking out of one side of their mouths in the Australian House of Representatives, seeking to delay consideration of the Registration of Deaths Abroad Amendment Bill 2016 and then, out of the other side of their mouths, they talk to people in this building, members of the press gallery, saying 'Gee, you'd think the Senate would be considering legislation by now.' Their actions on the other side have stopped us doing that which we should be doing—looking at legislation.

The fact is the Australian Labor Party have chosen the most uncontroversial bill that they could possibly find. If Labor continue in this vein, the Australian people will recognise Labor for what they are—that is, an operation that is not fit for government. I know they are referred to as the alternative government, but they are not an option that is fit for purpose. They are not an option that is ready for service. They are not interested in making this a place of cooperation.

I remember when I was the Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate, I was always looking for opportunities where we could make this place work. Where there was legislation that was not controversial, we did the right thing—we would not frustrate its passage simply for the sake of an exercise. Indeed, I remember some of my colleagues being critical, saying, 'Mitch, you're being too cooperative with the other side.' I stand guilty as charged, that I was endeavouring to make sure that we maintained the public interest at the forefront of our minds—where there was legislation that was not controversial, what was the possible point of frustrating that legislation? The only people you are seeking to punish by taking that approach are the Australian people. We are not interested in that.

When we were in opposition, we were interested in focusing on those areas of genuine disagreement. Who would have thought that the Registration of Deaths Abroad Amendment Bill 2016 would have become an issue of controversy in the House of Representatives. I do not think anyone on this side would have thought for a moment that the Australian Labor Party would have stooped so low as to delay and to make as an issue of controversy the Registration of Deaths Abroad Amendment Bill 2016.