Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I stand to make a contribution on the amendment that has been moved by Senator Shoebridge. I think the bigger issue here is: what are we actually doing here again? We're here again because we are under a guillotine, or that's the proposal that's been put forward. I want to put on the record that, if you have a look in Odgers' and at Senate procedure, it's clear:

… a majority of the Senate may agree with the declaration by a minister that a particular bill is urgent.

We have had so many guillotines in this place over the last few months, and I would contend that you could hardly say every one of the bills that was subject to a guillotine was urgent. So I'm interested to understand what the government's determination of 'urgent' is.

What are guillotines to be used for? They're to be used to:

… provide finite debating times for a particular bill or to bring protracted debates to a close.

Well, it's hardly a protracted debate if you haven't had any debate at all. A guillotine is:

… most frequently imposed at the end of a period of sittings when the time available to deal with complex or copious legislation is running out.

I would have hardly thought that bringing on a guillotine on the first day of the sitting fortnight means it's for complex, copious legislation or because we're running out of time. So it appears, from looking at the definition of why one would put legislation under a guillotine, that that is not the purpose for which this government is seeking to use this particular provision that is contained in the standing orders. They're seeking to use it as a standard management tool for the running of this particular chamber. In doing so, they're trashing the conventions of many, many years that have served this place well and enabled this place to run on an understanding that legislation is able to be debated and allowed to be scrutinised, that there is a level of transparency around it and that we have the opportunity to refer it to committee. There are a whole heap of reasons you would not put legislation under a guillotine, but it appears that that is no longer the view of the government.

As I said, they're using this as a standard practice. There's nothing urgent about anything that we've got here today. In fact, the Australian Postal Corporation and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2024 is listed to, in a minute, go into non-contro legislation, which would hardly suggest that it is terrifically urgent. There has been agreement around the chamber that many of these bills will be passed today, but, no, we're going to cut the neck off them just because we don't want to debate.

Today's guillotine is probably not the most egregious use of the guillotine that we have seen in the last few weeks because, as I said, many of the bills are largely not controversial, although I respect the fact that the Greens are seeking to remove one of the bills because they clearly have an issue with it. But we've seen a number of very high-profile bills shoved through this place in an attempt to avoid scrutiny and transparency. And don't forget this is a government that went to the people of Australia at the election in 2022 saying it was bringing in a new type of government: transparency was going to be at the centre of everything it did. But nothing could be further from transparent than what we have seen from this government.

I'll just raise a couple of bills that we've seen go under the guillotine—but they haven't gone under the guillotine at the end of a period; they've gone under the guillotine simply for the purpose of not allowing debate, transparency or reference to a committee. Just this week, there's the live exports bill, which is going to impact 3,000 farmers, mostly in the state of Western Australia. They've got a compensation package that is going to provide little more than $15 million a year to those farmers. We're talking about hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars that this industry is worth, and they're going to get $15 million a year or thereabouts under this package of compensation that's being proposed by this government. I mean—really? More money was spent on the Mad Max movie than was spent on compensating the 3,000 farmers in Western Australia. And let's not forget that Australia rides on the sheep's back; it always has. That is like a euphemism for our agricultural sector, which is constantly being destroyed.

All that was asked for by the sector, by the farmers, by their supporters in Western Australia, by rural and regional communities and by the coalition on this side was, 'Could we have an inquiry?' The premise on which the government put forward this piece of legislation was based on something from a very long time ago. We all saw the terrible footage, back in 2019, when we had a terrible catastrophe with a live export ship going into the Middle East. Since then, the sector has gone to extraordinary lengths to now be regarded as the gold standard for the rest of the world in animal standards. But here we've seen no ability for the sector to put to this parliament the reasons it believes that the live export trade should continue. There was the guillotine, and that was the end of that debate.

The week before, exactly the same thing happened on vaping. The government sought to put a bill through here. They sought, at the last minute, to make a significant change to that bill, with no consultation whatsoever with anybody apart from the Greens. And because they didn't want scrutiny on that bill, instead of allowing it to go through a normal process—to come in here and let the people who have been elected by the Australian public to be in here have their say—we just got a short period of time in which people could put a contribution on the record about it, and then, boom! That one was also cut off before we could have any scrutiny.

It really is quite amazing, the length this government is prepared to go to in order to avoid scrutiny. Who could forget Labor's guide on how not to answer questions in the Senate? I cannot believe the audacity of this government—that they would actually put in writing to their members and their bureaucracy how not to answer questions. I would have thought a government that had built its reputation on supposed transparency would actually want to answer those questions. Let's not forget; if you're proud of what you've done, you should be proud to put what you've done into the public arena. As I said, we have seen the guillotine used absolutely wantonly by this government.

But, as a general rule and a general principle, at the end of a sitting period, when you're about to go on a protracted break, there is a sort of unwritten convention that we can put through legislation under a guillotine. So the opposition won't stand in the way of this guillotine today, for that very reason. But I want to make it very clear that any other time a guillotine is brought into this place—and it's being brought in time and time again, on bills that are not urgent, and it is being used now as a measure to avoid transparency and scrutiny—the opposition will not support the guillotine under that particular premise. But we will begrudgingly accept this one today.