Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Well, I'm glad you are. But I'll tell you what: Mr Littleproud wasn't concerned about it, nor were some of your colleagues across the chamber.

The minister gave a couple of other points. He noted that determinations would be made on the basis of expert technical and scientific assessments that determine whether a particular pest or disease poses an unacceptable level of biosecurity risk and he considered that subjecting these determinations to the disallowance process would have the potential to jeopardise the effectiveness of decision-making and risk management processes. Again, we get that every day. Just about every piece of legislation we've passed in the last couple of days has had technical matters and scientific advice in it.

He noted that there were some safeguards in the bill. He also noted that disallowance would be inappropriate because it could generate uncertainty. In other words, having the Senate and the Commonwealth parliament scrutinise regulations could create uncertainty. Well, of course it could, but, once again, it's our job to do this. It is bread-and-butter work for us as senators. He gave more information there. He considered that a 15-sitting-day disallowance period would, among other things, give rise to considerable uncertainty around business requirements, as disallowance would take effect immediately upon the passing of the motion. Now, that's a little bit misleading; that would be the passing of the motion to actually disallow, if it were disallowed by the Senate. When disallowances are tabled in this place, they're effective immediately.

This is perhaps an interesting question for some senators: does anyone know how many of pieces of regulation came before the Senate in the years from 2010 to 2019 to be disallowed? Thousands. How many were actually disallowed out of the thousands that were brought before the Senate? The number is 17—and I know that, for a specific couple of those, there was very good reason for it. So, out of the thousands of disallowable instruments that have come before this chamber in the last decade, only 17 were disallowed, yet the minister feels that's going to create uncertainty in relation to this legislation.

I want to bring senators' attention to this. I don't have time to go into it, but, in responding to the minister's response, the Scrutiny of Bills Committee made its view really clear. The committee reiterated:

Simply stating that a matter is technically complex, or has significant policy implications, is not an adequate justification for removing democratic oversight over a law of the Commonwealth—

or for reducing the scrutiny of the Commonwealth parliament. It is not clear to the committee from the minister's explanation why the minister considers it is appropriate to exempt an instrument from disallowance merely because considerations that go into making that instrument are scientific or technical, and it gives a lot of examples of other instruments that we've had before the Senate about which no minister has raised these issues.

He also goes on to say that, in relation to the minister's advice, allowing the usual disallowance process to apply to instruments made under the proposed sections 196A and 196B and 393B would create an unacceptable level of uncertainty. The committee acknowledges that, yes, there's some uncertainty, but this is our lawmaking system; this is how we make laws in this country.

I think I've said enough on this. As I mentioned, if we'd had support from across the chamber, we would have moved a substantive amendment on this. But I just want to get on record the Greens' concerns that, when we so easily walk away from our role and our scrutiny of critical legislation, this is a slippery slope for us as a chamber and as a Commonwealth parliament. We support what's in this, but we support our right to have a period of time to do more work on it and to seek commitment from stakeholders. And let's be honest, we're under a lot of pressure to pass legislation this week and next week. We haven't had a lot of time to seek and consult on the back on this. It probably would have been perfectly fine to have passed this and had them as disallowable instruments, and then they would have immediately gone into law, and it's very unlikely they would have been disallowed because I think we all agree we need better biosecurity laws. The Greens have been very supportive of the current inquiry into biosecurity threats. We lobbied to get varroa mite included into that ongoing inquiry, which I'm part of in the rural and regional affairs committee. We absolutely support the need for better biosecurity laws, but we do not support reducing the power of the Senate. That's what we are. We are senators. This is our job, and I want to get that on record today.