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

I move:

After paragraph (4)(g), add:

  (ga) tabling (only) of committee reports;

In moving this amendment I draw the attention of the chamber to what happens when you rush things. What happens when you rush things is you forget things. We've got a number of really important reports that need to be tabled, but in their rush to put through this guillotine motion—and, despite what the minister says, the number of bills on this is unprecedented—they forgot to put in the tabling of reports, some of which are very important. I also draw attention to the really important committee work that happens in this place. Part of that importance is the fact that the reports of those committees need to be tabled. But apparently, in the rush to get through this legislative agenda that no-one had seen until last night at eight o'clock, we forgot to put the committee reports in.

I'd also draw the chamber's attention to the fact that, despite the minister's protestations about the significant importance of all of these bills, as I said in my previous contribution, I cannot think of anything that would be less important in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, on the last day of sitting, than changing the gender definition of His Majesty the King, who is apparently now going to be gender neutral, going forward. According to the minister's previous contribution in moving this motion, that's apparently really, really important to the good governance of this country and the welfare of the people who we in this place are privileged to be the parliament for.

Can I just say, in moving my amendment, it is tremendously disappointing that today, despite the fact that we have 38 bills on here, there will be no opportunity—no opportunity at all—for proper scrutiny. I have to say, having experienced putting bills through this place over the last three years, if there is one thing that has been a hallmark of the government it is the fact that they don't deal with the detail and there were always unintended consequences because of the shabby drafting of things because their drafting instructions are obviously inadequate. Right now I am standing here moving an amendment to fix up a mistake because of their shabby instructions when they had this motion drafted. They completely omitted putting in something as important as the tabling of reports.

I think the Australian public know that, unless the scrutiny of this parliament is put over the legislation that's brought into this place by those opposite, they will get substandard legislation. How many times, when we've turned up in here to scrutinise bills that they've wanted to rush through—without the committee process, without due scrutiny—have we had to make amendments? I'll draw your attention to one that happened last week. We put through the Aged Care Bill last week, and there were 91 amendments by the government itself as a result of a committee inquiry—a committee inquiry that this government didn't even want to have. I think the Australian public have every right to be pretty disappointed at the disrespect that this chamber, through the motion by this government, is showing to them with this lack of scrutiny.

We know that scrutiny invariably improves the situation. It calls out unintended consequences, often ones that are likely to negatively impact on Australians. I will absolutely guarantee you that, in this whole list of bills here, there will be many, many bills that would have benefited from the scrutiny of this chamber. That is the reason we get paid to come here every day. Our job is to scrutinise legislation. That is our job, and this government is today forcing through this place a motion to prevent us from doing our job—preventing us from doing the job of the Senate. The sole reason that we exist is for scrutiny, and you are circumventing that by refusing to allow the Senate to scrutinise these bills. I hope for your sake that there aren't unintended consequences in these bills that are going to negatively affect Australians, because so far you've done very little to consider the concerns of Australians in the legislation you've put through in this place. The cost of living is the most important thing that we should be dealing with in this place, not worrying about the gender pronouns of the sovereign.