Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I have listened with great interest to the arguments provided by the government with regard to these legislative changes, the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill 2026, and with particular interest to the words of Senator Hume, who I think has made a terrific case for why these changes should have received proper scrutiny.

However, I want to take a step back. We live in a time when, around the world, liberal democracies are under threat, and the role of this Senate is the ultimate final frontier for protecting Australia's democracy. It is in this place that every one of the 76 of us who form the Australian Senate have a responsibility to our states, to the organisations that send us here—our parties—and, most importantly, to the parliament and to democracy. I have been increasingly concerned by the actions of this government since they were elected only four short years ago—the number of pieces of legislation that are guillotined with no debate and with no referral or reference to committees for further examination, the trampling of incredibly important institutions that support our democracy, and the effects on industries that employ so many Australians who pay tax and that allow us to be the prosperous First World country that we have enjoyed for generations.

Today my blood runs cold, because not only is this the removal of a right of this important chamber to properly scrutinise legislation but it is legislation that removes important competition elements and powers that are important to our economy and important to regional parts of Australia, particularly to small businesses, whether they be food businesses, fuel businesses or other businesses. The removal of those rights by this government is something all Australians should be very concerned about. I would go so far as to say that, when I see the Greens political party stand with the government to remove that democratic right of review, I ask each of them to look in their hearts and ask what deal has been done that they threw away and trampled on this important democratic distinction.

I turn now to the specific legislation. The minister lectured us about the urgency of this legislation and how the coalition was opposing it just to be difficult—a painfully laboured arguments that bears absolutely no credence when you look at the history of these powers and how the exemptions have been allowed over many years. In fact, I was looking at the ACCC's own report which publishes the times when the interim authorisations have been utilised. This report goes back to 2014—more than 10 years of authorisations decided. It also provides a very simple graphical representation of the number of business days required for decisions, particularly during the COVID period: one day, one day, three days, one day—I could go through this entire list. Do we really think one day to make an exemption, an interim authorisation for an important competition decision, is too long, particularly when this government says that it is so urgent that it's backdating it to 1 April? To me, that smacks of a cover-up of decisions that were improperly made, leading to the government now seeking to introduce legislation to fix their inadequacies.

There has been absolutely no demonstration from the government to describe the urgency of this legislation and these amendments. Is there something urgent the government is not telling us about? Is there some looming threat today that the government is aware of but has not disclosed to the Australian people? That's a shocking thought, isn't it—something so urgent that a bill that collapses competition powers and allows non-disallowable decisions by the ACCC should be passed into law, without the government disclosing what that is. That would be a shocking position for Australia to find itself in.

The powers must have a sunset date. There must be transparency around when they are used, how they are used and for what reason they are used. I will give you an example as to why this is important. There has been a lack of inquiry and review. The coalition sought to hear from businesses and regions that were affected when these powers were used over the last 13 years. Let me tell you about some of them. Let me tell you about what happens in regional Australia when competition laws must be relaxed. When small businesses are unable to employ a lobbyist or somebody to speak for them with the ACCC, their rights are trampled. Let me give you the most recent example: the flooding in Cairns. Every single road and access point to Cairns was blocked, and the city began quite quickly to run out of food, medicine and fuel—all the obvious things. The ACCC's exemption and the government's decision to fly supplies into Cairns were obviously necessary and important, but the ACCC and the government failed to engage with small businesses, so the duopoly of Coles and Woolworths benefited. The Australian taxpayer provided food for those businesses to sell to the people of North Queensland. But what happened to the other businesses—the fruit and veg businesses, the fish and chip operators, the butchers, the corner store—the ones we rely on day in, day out to provide services and choice, and competition to the duopolies? What happened to those? There was no avenue given to them to have a business source—food. I was flooded with phone calls—what does this mean for me, for my business, for my employees, for the service I provide to the people in this community when this is over?

We should probably not expect this to be of any concern at all to Labor given that, under their watch, they put a butcher shop out of business in Cairns that supplied people who were hearing impaired, people who were intellectually disabled, physically disabled, and people from Indigenous communities because they decided it was no longer an appropriate business; instead, they would encourage all those people to go and shop at a duopoly business. This is the result of the lack of attention to competition regulation and legislation, so I ask the members of the Senate: take more care. I particularly say that to the members of the Greens party and to those other Independents who sat with government and agreed that there should be no scrutiny, no transparency and no review of these laws.

I am shocked. It takes absolutely no effort and time and cost to those people to allow for proper review that would have allowed people who would be affected by these decisions to have a voice, and, importantly, for the role of democracy to be upheld in this place. Because, like the story of the thousand sticks that broke the camel's back, this is just one law. It seems small and insignificant today but it is just one more removal of transparency and democratic decision-making that undermines our democracy. This is where bad government goes, to remove transparency and hide behind urgency without demonstrating why. I have been able to show you examples in the last 14 years of the existing powers being used to deal with crises powers overseen by the parliament, powers that are reviewable by the parliament, yet, under this rushed legislation, any argument to demonstrate why these powers should be given both to the Treasurer and to the ACCC will not be scrutinised.

The coalition, of course, supports sensible measures that would help Australia better manage crisis situations, things that will protect Australians wherever they may live, small businesses, big businesses, the states, the territories. That is the role of this parliament—to better protect Australians and to absorb crises shocks. But these are not powers that were asked for or required under COVID, a very similar situation of having shortages of supply. An inquiry by the Senate economics committee was the bare minimum of requirements, the bare minimum of scrutiny that should have been given.

This bill also creates a new framework for exceptional circumstances. Again, what exceptional circumstances are in this legislation that should not be examined through a Senate committee? What is so secret? What is so urgent and rushed that the Senate of Australia would not have the opportunity to review it?

I am very concerned. I'm concerned that there does need to be interim powers provided to businesses to coordinate during a genuine crisis. The priority must be to get fuel, food and medicine into all parts and points of Australia. But this legislation does not provide for Australians to understand what problem they seek to solve. What problem is it that the government is seeking to use this sledgehammer to solve? I fear we will never know until it is demonstrated to us. Retrospective powers, rushed powers, non-disallowable powers—this is legislation that bears all the hallmarks of a dangerous intervention into the democratic rights and reviews that the parliament should hold and certainly that Australians believe in. Australians fought for the right to have a democracy such as ours, and we should do that right here today.