Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to speak on the motion to exempt the legislation entitled the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill 2026 from the cut-off order. Obviously, there are serious issues that our country faces when it comes to matters relating to this fuel crisis, which, let's not forget, the government told us just a couple of months ago wasn't happening—there was nothing to see here; we didn't need to worry about it—and urgent responses are always needed. But it is important when, as a country, trying to deal with matters in the national interest, we have a bipartisan approach to any solution to those issues, especially when it comes to significant changes to legislation.

As far as I'm aware, the opposition has not been given a huge amount of insight or forewarning or indeed detailed briefings around what this legislation is and the urgency for such legislation. If the legislation is to empower ministers to make decisions in certain circumstances to do things, then one only has to turn one's mind back to the issues confronted by our country during the COVID period. At that time, we had a minister who was able to authorise certain actions that enabled the government to do certain things with regard to AdBlue in this country. That did not require legislative change. The powers existed to enable the minister to do that.

The opposition does support appropriate measures to ensure that we have in place the right measures to deal with any issue confronted by this country, to ensure that Australian households and businesses are not unfairly hit. We will always support those measures, but proper process and scrutiny is necessary here. We have indicated to the government that we would be very willing to support, as I said, appropriate measures that are well thought through and appropriately designed. I understand we have an amendment relating to an inquiry into the legislation that we're talking about here.

We're not talking about delaying this. This is not about some unduly long process to send this off into the never-never. We could do this a very short period of time. It is to understand what the powers in this legislation that we have barely had a moment to look at actually do and what solutions will be provided to the Australian people. To enable a parliament to do its job and properly scrutinise this legislation is the appropriate course of action, I think. I would very much welcome any indication from the government whether they are open to such an approach—to allow the parliament, while we're sitting this week, to undertake such scrutiny. We could properly interrogate this legislation. It is my understanding that Senator Canavan does have a second reading amendment relating to an inquiry. Obviously, the Senate will divide on this question of whether we do exempt from the cut-off. The opposition's position on that will be to oppose that on the basis that, at this point in time, we have not been provided with clarity around the necessity, the scope, the implications. We do not want to delete things unnecessarily; we are just asking for proper process to be followed here. We are willing to cooperate, and please give us those elements of information and supports we need to be able to cooperate properly for a good outcome.