Slade Brockman (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Hansard source

First of all, I wish to congratulate Senator McDonald on her contribution, and I wish to echo many of the words she said. I hope not to speak for too long on the Competition and Consumer Amendment (Responding to Exceptional Circumstances) Bill 2026. We'll see how we go, but I do think there are some very important points to be made.

My last count was 163 on the number of times the government has used what they euphemistically call time management in this place to ram legislation through. More colloquially, it's called the guillotine. Guillotines are available to governments in this place, but quite frankly this government uses them as a matter of routine, not something that is required in exceptional circumstances. In the vast majority of those cases, it has been the Labor Party and the Greens who have worked together to guillotine bills through this place. Both of those parties proclaim themselves to be champions of transparency and of the processes of this place in terms of legislative scrutiny. Yet, seemingly at every opportunity where a deal can be done behind closed doors, that deal is done, and legislation is rammed through this place without adequate scrutiny and without proper process being followed. To be perfectly honest, it beggars belief that we continue to see it. But with complete chutzpah, with complete lack of self-awareness, the Labor government continues to proclaim itself the champion of transparency, while at the same time ignoring the very reasonable requests from the shadow minister and the shadow minister's representative in this place towards this bill, in particular.

Senator Canavan made it very clear. He would have been—I won't say happy, but he would have been willing to see a short inquiry conducted today or tonight and for this bill to be considered tomorrow to at least allow a few of the key points in this bill to be interrogated by senators in this place, because that is our job. It is our job to scrutinise government legislation, to make sure it does what the government says it does, to make sure there are no unintended consequences, to make sure that powers given are proportionate, reasonable and not excessive and to make sure we aren't going to, in some way, damage those people that we are supposedly here to help. As I have said, Labor and the Greens seemingly do these deals behind closed doors and the proper processes of this place are ignored.

Let's just go through some of my concerns with this bill. I will remind those who are listening to or reading this debate that we have only had this bill for a matter of hours. Competition law is not simple. There are very few simple laws these days, but I will put that to one side. Competition law is excessively complex, and the risk of unintended consequences when you are meddling in the competition space is very real. These are significant powers being given to entities such as the ACCC and the government itself. These are big, significant powers that we are meddling with here today in a rushed fashion.

Competition law is designed to protect consumers. It's designed to protect small business. It stops large players from coordinating together to do damage in our marketplace. We don't want anticompetitive conduct to become normal, but the balance has to be right. The fact is, as Senator Canavan, Senator McDonald and others have very clearly pointed out, the existing system has worked before and has worked in a timely fashion. The current framework saw us through the COVID pandemic. That was obviously a time when there were severe economic shocks to the system, and exemptions to the competition framework were granted quickly, in a very timely fashion—in some cases, in less than 24 hours. So the argument that these special powers in this bill are necessary as an adjunct to the current framework are, quite frankly, dubious. It is dubious to say that this new arrangement is needed, because we have seen the current arrangements work in a situation where rapid action was required.

Another matter which I think does require a proper inquiry and consideration is the fact that the Treasurer's declaration power under this bill is very broad. It is not confined to a particular crisis, such as the current crisis on fuel. Once a declaration is made, it opens the door to the ACCC's exemptions from competition law, which then raises the other matter which I think is very worthy of scrutiny, which is that those exemptions from competition law are not disallowable by parliament. So it gives no capacity for this body to actually say: 'No, wait. The government and the ACCC have actually overstepped. They're actually damaging the market.' This Senate should have the power to step in and say no. That is a normal power of the Senate when it comes to matters such as this. But, instead, we are seeing these powers effectively being exempted from parliamentary scrutiny after the event.

I think that perhaps there is an argument to say that these declarations shouldn't be disallowed, but at the very least this chamber has an absolute obligation to consider whether giving up a power like that is warranted. We need an explanation. Hopefully, we will have a committee stage on this bill, and, hopefully, the minister will be able to explain it in a more comprehensive and less partisan fashion than he did in his earlier remarks. Perhaps he will be able to explain why this chamber isn't given that right, a totally normal right for this chamber to have. I'm also concerned about the matter of transparency. The exemptions made under this legislation need only be made public within seven days. Seven days in the middle of a crisis, which presumably is what is required to trigger these kinds of powers, is an awful long time.

In the modern world, there is absolutely no barrier to such decisions being made available to the Australian people and to business within 24 hours. There are absolutely no technical barriers meaning they can't be. Is there another reason why this information needs to be kept secret for seven days before being entrusted to the Australian people? I use that word euphemistically because we should always trust the Australian people. Is there a reason? That should be teased out in a Senate inquiry. I hope again that the minister has an adequate explanation for that if and when we get to a committee stage—if this bill is not guillotined like literally dozens and dozens of other pieces of legislation that have been guillotined through this place by the Labor and Greens political parties.

The other key matter that deserves investigation and deserves a proper explanation, not partisan nonsense from the minister, is why this bill is retrospective. If it is retrospective and that is justified, why do we need to rush it? Making it retrospective in a week's time is exactly the same as making it retrospective today. We could delay this bill for a number of weeks, have a proper inquiry and still make it retrospective to 1 April 2026. If you're going backwards in time with a bill, it doesn't matter if you do it three weeks later or six weeks later. But why? Why are we being retrospective in any case? What is the justification for that retrospectivity? Retrospective bills are an anathema to this place.

We should always treat bills that act retrospectively with even greater caution than we do other legislation because they effectively make things that have happened in the past legal when they potentially weren't. We need to understand exactly what those things are and how they have impacted on real people and real businesses. This is not some theoretical discussion. Laws have impacts. That's their whole point. If people are not willing to look properly at this legislation to see whether these powers, however well-intentioned, are justified, proportionate and will do what the government says they're going to do—though, to be honest, from my perspective, I don't think the government has given an adequate explanation of what they actually want to do with this bill.

I don't think they have explained the need for this bill. I don't think they have explained the need for retrospectivity. The coalition, as has been said by many speakers in this place, are absolutely willing to look at these kinds of powers. But it needs to be done in the cold, hard light of day, not in a secret deal with the Greens in some back room. That is unacceptable.