Sandy Macdonald (NSW, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That consideration of the business before the Senate today be interrupted at approximately 5 pm, but not so as to interrupt a senator speaking, to enable Senator Bernardi to make his first speech without any question before the chair.

Question agreed to.

by leave—I move:

That—

(1)

On Tuesday, 13 and 20 June 2006:

(a)

the hours of meeting shall be 12.30 pm to 6.30 pm and 7.30 pm to adjournment;

(b)

the routine of business from 7.30 pm shall be government business only; and

(c)

the question for the adjournment of the Senate shall be proposed at 11 pm.

(2)

On Wednesday, 14 June 2006, the routine of business be varied to provide that:

(a)

matters of public interest be called on at 1.15 pm; and

(b)

questions without notice be called on at 2.30 pm.

(3)

On Thursday, 15 and 22 June 2006:

(a)

the hours of meeting shall be 9.30 am to 6.30 pm and 7.30 pm to 11.40 pm;

(b)

consideration of general business and consideration of committee reports, government responses and Auditor-General’s reports under standing order 62(1) and (2) shall not be proceeded with;

(c)

the routine of business from not later than 4.30 pm shall be government business only;

(d)

divisions may take place after 4.30 pm; and

(e)

the question for the adjournment of the Senate shall be proposed at 11 pm.

(4)

The Senate shall sit on Friday, 16 and 23 June 2006 and that:

(a)

the hours of meeting shall be 9 am to 4.25 pm;

(b)

the routine of business shall be:

(i)

notices of motion, and

(ii)

government business only; and

(c)

the question for the adjournment of the Senate shall be proposed at 3.45 pm.

Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish to note what this motion does. It seeks to extend the hours for tonight, with the adjournment to be proposed at 11 pm. It will also add for this Thursday and next Tuesday and Thursday additional hours, with the adjournment to be proposed at 11 pm. It will also add two Friday sittings—this Friday and next Friday—to the list. The government sought these additional hours to deal with the program—in other words, the bills that remain to be dealt with, as far as the government is concerned, before the winter recess. The government did give us some notice about these additional hours. However, it draws to attention whether the government is in fact ensuring that bills receive proper scrutiny, that bills can be referred to committees so committees can do their work, that the Senate can introduce those committee reports and have them spoken to and dealt with appropriately and properly and that speeches on the second reading can take those reports into consideration in the usual way that this place has proceeded in the past. We know that the government has the numbers in this place and the government can exercise its will by ensuring that this is the process that we will follow. It is really a case of either taking this motion by leave or having the argument which, in any event, the government would win.

Effectively, this motion means that we will expand the program in the last two weeks before the recess to deal with something in the order of 28 sets of bills, within which are a range of complex matters. The opposition has said that it will facilitate the passage of those bills that relate to budget measures. There is no argument about that. However, there are a number of other bills that the government has sought to put on the agenda. They are weighty bills and have weighty issues contained within them. They deserve significant consideration by this Senate. This proposed program tries to cram all that into the last two weeks. It is disappointing to see that the government has again adopted the program of trying to expand the hours to fit the bills in. In truth, what the government has missed is this: ensuring that those bills that have been brought forward over the last six months have been dealt with appropriately and referred to committees and received proper scrutiny. That is what this government has failed to manage in this place.

It is disappointing to see the government, once again, bring before us another expansion of the program to fit the hours in. Of course, it is one matter to say, ‘We are trying to avoid a third week’—as the government has indicated—‘Therefore, we will expand the hours to do that.’ However, it misses the point that this seems to be a regular occurrence. It has happened not once this term; it has happened twice. You may recall, Mr Acting Deputy President, that before the five-week break it was partly due, so I was told by the government, to the Commonwealth Games. We had roughly the same process where we expanded the program by a number of hours to fit in a range of bills that were required to be dealt with.

I am concerned that this is a process that the government will seek to adopt time and time again to deal with bills at the end of sessions. It may mean that it leaves bills that it wants to ensure do not receive adequate scrutiny from the opposition’s perspective to that last lot at the end of the session, so that it gets wrapped up and punted through. What should happen is that this government should take it on notice from the opposition that it needs to address the issue in a more sensible and pragmatic way to ensure that bills are dealt with in an orderly way, that they can be referred to committees for report back and that they can then be argued and considered speeches on the second reading can be given based on those reports and that they are not then brought on in a compacted program such as this.

The broader issue is that the government now has control of the Senate, and the object of expanding the hours might be to avoid using gags or guillotines. It is unseemly for the government to turn to this, but it has used it in the past to foreshorten debate and I suspect this is a way of trying to avoid that occurring. We will not know until the program progresses whether it has been successful in that process.

We will ensure that each bill receives adequate scrutiny. We will not delay it unnecessarily. We will ensure that each bill gets the attention it requires, but it comes down to what we can deal with in the Senate. The part that preceded it—committees being able to adequately scrutinise, having sufficient time for committees—the government should take on notice and address it in a more sensible way than what they have been doing. In the last six months, they have been foreshortening committee inquiries and making the reporting dates earlier than what is adequate to reasonably examine bills and legislation. They ensure that some committees only sit on one day and have inadequate time to consider bills. They have used gags and guillotines in the past to truncate debates on bills. As I have said, I think they are going to use this technique to try to avoid that.

What needs to be said in all of this is that the government has the numbers. It can take that course, but for the Senate to look at and scrutinise legislation appropriately the government should ensure that reports, committees and references get adequately dealt with in this place. This government has also tended to close down debate by not agreeing to adequate references which would otherwise provide insight for the Senate into particular issues.

There has been a range of issues, but I will come back to those in another debate. I am sure this government will give me an opportunity to come back on Senate process and procedures before this fortnight ends, but I wanted to make that point in respect of this motion. We have allowed it to go by leave, so there is significant understanding within this place that we need to get through the legislative program. But it is worth reminding the government that they have the numbers. They have the responsibility to make sure that legislation gets adequately scrutinised and is not rushed or otherwise dealt with in an unseemly way.

Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would also like to speak to this motion. As Senator Ludwig has outlined, the motion increases the sitting hours for this week and next week for late night sittings on Tuesday and Thursday. As a bit of an aside, it once again removes the opportunity for senators to debate and speak to government documents that are tabled in this place on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays. This follows on from the same action that happened last sitting week in May, so since March senators have not been able to speak to some of these documents.

Some senators may think that it is not that exciting, that most of those documents are annual reports, they are not that significant and it does not really matter. Firstly, I disagree. The importance of annual reports should not be underestimated, nor should the opportunity for senators to speak to them and the issues they raise be underestimated. But it also means that other significant government documents are not able to be spoken to and expanded upon more fully in this place. I am thinking particularly of some of the reports that have been tabled by the immigration minister in recent times: reports from the Immigration Ombudsman about people kept in detention for prolonged periods of time and the government’s responses to those reports. Those reports have not been able to be spoken to in the appropriate place, in the Senate, after they have been tabled because of motions such as these by the government, which remove the opportunity to speak to them so that the government can give priority to its own business.

Documents tabled today, which again we will not be able to speak to, relate to the Refugee Review Tribunal reviews that were not completed within the 90-day period that is required under legislation. Similarly, there is the report on protection visa processing and how much of that has taken more than 90 days. That report, also, is not able to be spoken to. The report of LiveCorp, the body that oversees the live export trade from Australia—a topic that is of great interest to many Australians—has been tabled today and is not able to be spoken to. The report on how the prohibition on interactive gambling advertisements is going is not able to be spoken to.

Whilst the attitude towards some of these documents might be somewhat dismissive—and clearly is from the government’s point of view—I think it is a serious problem if you have prolonged periods of time when they are not able to be addressed in the Senate other than by a senator speaking individually on an adjournment debate late at night. I think there are 81 documents on the Notice Paper at the moment and there are another 15 or so, so there are close to 100 documents on the Notice Paper to be noted and spoken to should a senator desire. Some of those have had initial speeches made on them, but it is one area that is consistently being pushed further off the agenda and further away from any consideration that it is important business. I think it is a disconcerting trend. I am as willing as anybody else to forgo that aspect of Senate business when necessary from time to time, but to be doing it as a matter of course, week after week, becomes a significant problem.

The other aspect of this motion is that it enables the government to endeavour to put through a significant number of pieces of legislation about significant matters in a very short space of time. We have the problem that senators have to try to be across the content and detail of all of these different sorts of legislation. That is obviously particularly problematic for those of us in smaller parties; nonetheless it is something that all senators need to try to do and of course the community should be able to try to do. When you have a huge number of pieces of legislation being pushed through in a small number of days, it inevitably means reduction in the adequacy of the scrutiny that that legislation receives. So it is a matter not just of how many hours are available but also how many days those hours are spread over. The more things are crammed into a small number of days, the more difficult it is to have enough time to look at those issues. We are seeing that, of course, with some of the legislation committee reports that are coming down, where committees simply have not had enough time to look at legislation in the detail that is needed. Of course, that means that other senators that rely on those committees and their reports to get a view on legislation also do not get as full an idea as they might otherwise.

These things cascade into generally degrading the ability of the Senate to do its job and to properly scrutinise legislation and also that wider important task of not just senators but others in the community and the press gallery to communicate to the people the detail of all these measures. It is simply human nature and an inevitability that, if you have 10 important things all happening on the one day, the focus will only go to one or two of them, while if they are spread over 10 days then each of them will get the attention it deserves. That is a phenomenon that is happening more and more. It also leads to less awareness about what is going on, less awareness about the issues that are directly affecting people and, I would suggest, a continuing decline in the public’s faith in and connection with the political process. I believe that is a serious problem. It is one that is getting worse. I for one do not want to be supporting any contribution that continues to make it worse.

The final comment I would make is that this motion to extend the sitting hours over the next two weeks to enable the government to push through as many pieces of legislation as possible is something that is particularly necessary just because of the extremely small number of sitting days the government has allowed so far this year. Today is only the 15th sitting day for this year. There are only this week and next week to go and then we do not sit until August. So when we get to the second week of August—the second week of the eighth month of the year—the Senate will only have had around 22 sitting days. That is grossly inadequate. That is a point that I have raised time and time again.

I should remind the Senate that, when the sitting days were set for the first part of this year, I moved an amendment to have an extra sitting week scheduled for the Senate in the first part of the year to avoid this sort of situation. That was not supported by the government. It was not supported by the ALP either, I might say. Frankly, I think it suits the government to have a large number of pieces of legislation crammed into a short period of time. It might suit the government but it does not suit democracy. I think it is a real problem. The Democrats will continue to speak out against it to try to reverse this situation and to have the Senate operate more in accordance with the way that it should.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Greens oppose this motion. It is an absolute affront to the voting public in this country that the government is truncating the sittings of the Senate. What we are seeing is a three-way squeeze: firstly, fewer sitting days; secondly, a lengthening of the sitting days that we have, to accommodate the usual list of necessary legislation; and, thirdly, an increasing use of the gag and the guillotine to make sure that, even with the lengthened days, the government’s legislation goes through.

On my calculations, this will be the year of fewest Senate sittings, if you set aside election years, since 1964. It is over 40 years since the Senate has sat so little in a non-election year, when of course there are fewer days of sitting because of elections. The government has taken us back to the middle of last century as far as the Senate sittings are concerned. The National Party have gone along with the dictates of the executive to have the Senate treated in this fashion, along with the voting public’s right to know that the Senate, with its charge to vet government legislation, is able to do that adequately, which is not so.

Whether or not voters again endorse the majority in this place is something that they will have to consider at next year’s election. If they do, the Senate will continue to be treated as a plaything of the executive—which essentially these days means the Prime Minister—and not as a second and equal chamber here to ensure that legislation and other matters going through this parliament are indeed in the informed service of the public and not just a rubber stamp of the dictate of the executive. We are in a democracy. If people vote for it then people will get it.

At the last election—it has to be said—people did not know that this would be the outcome, but at the next election they will. The difficulty of course is that, to get back the balance of power which makes the Senate function in the efficient and productive way it has in recent decades, will require the government to lose more than half the seats available in the Senate. So we will see. The Greens will be campaigning on a basis of ‘rescue the Senate’ at the next election.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

More dishonesty!

Sandy Macdonald (NSW, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Sandy Macdonald interjecting—

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not know whether the interjections are orderly to you, Acting Deputy President—

John Watson (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Continue, Senator Brown.

Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They are. Then I presume that the calls of ‘dishonesty’ opposite are the government proclaiming their election campaign slogan for next year! It is interesting to see a degree of honesty coming into the sloganeering of the government members. They are saying that they will be campaigning on a basis of dishonesty in the run-up to the next election. The government certainly have a record that would back up that campaign as being authentic, for once, when they go before the Australian people.

The Greens will continue to faithfully serve the Senate, to tackle the government whenever it puts a foot wrong, which is very frequently, and to bring in productive and progressive alternatives to the government’s program in this place. But there it is: this is the executive trammelling the Senate because it has the numbers. We will be campaigning very strongly to reverse that next year. In the meantime, we will accept the situation as it is—that the government is going to run for cover. That is what this motion is about. It should be called the Howard government’s run-for-cover motion. It does not want scrutiny, it does not want analysis and it does not want opposition, because it knows that it loses every time it comes under the blowtorch of parliamentary dissection, parliamentary pressure and parliamentary heat. The government interjected about dishonesty this afternoon; it should add to that ‘a failure to face up to opposition’ when it comes to a great house like the Senate. That is the government using its numbers; that is the Prime Minister using the numbers in here. We oppose the motion.

Question agreed to.