Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Tertiary Education, Skills, Jobs and Workplace Relations (Senator Evans) to a question without notice asked by Senator Fifield today, relating to the Gillard government.

I think you will recall that the Australian Labor Party fought like no other before the last election, during the last election and after the election to retain office. They did something unprecedented: they tore down—they decapitated—a first term Prime Minister. They fought a tough and tenacious election campaign, post-election, they hopped into bed with the Greens and they wooed and courted the Independents in the other place. You fight so hard, so long and so desperately to retain office for a reason. You do that because you have an agenda, you do that because you have a plan and you do that because there are things in Australia which you think desperately need attention and change.

And so during the campaign the nation assumed that there would be a major agenda on offer—perhaps a plan to reform the tax system? But, no. Perhaps a plan to tackle climate change? No. Perhaps even a plan to help take the pressure off interest rates? No. So we waited during the campaign for the grand plan and the grand agenda; they did not come. Perhaps, we thought, the Labor Party may at least have had a secret agenda which they were not sharing with the Australian people? And so we waited for the parliament to sit; we waited for the legislative agenda and we waited for the grand plan.

What was the reason that the Australian Labor Party sought the glittering prize of commanding the confidence of the House of Representatives? Why was it that the ALP sought a governing pact with the Greens in the Senate? What was the purpose? Again today, for the second time, Senator Evans confirmed the reason for seeking the glittering prize of commanding a majority and the confidence of the House of Representatives. The reason was to introduce legislation to wind back voluntary student unionism. That is what it was all about. That was the only policy, the only plan and the only agenda that Senator Evans, desperately grasping in question time, could lay his hands upon.

That is pathetic. That is an indictment on the Australian Labor Party. This government has no reason for existing. It has no agenda. This government is like that great Peter Sellers movie, the title of which was Being There. That is what it is about for this government: it is just about being there. Senator Evans is a bit like Chauncey Gardiner, the hero of the movie. Chauncey Gardiner liked to watch; he did not do much he just liked to watch. And that is what this government does; that is what Senator Evans does and that is what the Prime Minister does—they just sit back and watch.

We know this government has no agenda. It was confirmed yesterday when the government ran out of legislation and they sought the assistance of minor parties and of the opposition to bring in legislation, which had not been flagged, immediately from the House of Representatives.

We have been incredibly cooperative as an opposition.

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for School Education and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Jacinta Collins interjecting—

Mitch Fifield (Victoria, Liberal Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have. In the week during the Afghanistan debate we facilitated a range of non-controversial legislation outside of that time. We have been extremely cooperative.

Despite that, this government is still running out of legislation. And despite the fact that the Senate has had its time taken up and the House has had its time taken up with the debate on Afghanistan and the address-in-reply, this government is still running out of legislation. No doubt as we approach the final week of the parliament, according to the government it will be this side of the chamber’s fault when there is a bit of a logjam. But the fact is there is nothing of substance that this government has introduced. They have no plan, they stand condemned and they have no reason for being.

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

What we have now heard is not only misinformation but also an outrageous hypocritical contribution in relation to how this place is managed from those opposite, who seek to upend the program and who seek to try to manage the program from afar without an understanding of how the program actually works—without even an understanding of how the Senate actually operates.

It operates most efficiently and effectively by cooperation between all the parties in here. What I have not heard from the opposition is an undertaking or a guarantee—and they have got the opportunity to give it with the remaining speakers—that we will get through the program that has been outlined. Of course it is misinformation provided by those opposite to say that they did not have a clear picture of what the program for this week was about. It was provided to all parties in the week leading up to this week. That program sets out what we expect to get through in the Senate this week.

I ask the opposition to consider providing that guarantee that we will finalise those pieces of legislation on that list this week. What is disappointing to see is that cheap politics are being played by those opposite with the legislative program, probably because they have nothing else to talk about other than the processor itself—which is disappointing in itself. But the management of the program within the Senate is a serious matter that all parties have agreed to and continue to agree to, except when it does not suit those opposite.

We also have an outrageous position being adopted by the opposition in relation to the program. It is one where it does not want to finalise the address-in-reply—that is an interesting position. We do need to finalise the address-in-reply within this fortnight so that we can provide it to the Governor-General in February when we come back. That is a matter that always happened during this period. If you are blind to that then you have not been following the program particularly well over the last couple of years. Perhaps Senator Evans’s comments about your inability to stay awake in this place are apt.

We do have a range of other matters that we then need to deal with as part of the legislative program. To ignore that we need to have these debates around a whole raft of things, including legislation, committees and the address-in-reply, is to ignore how the program works in the Senate. It is completely baseless to try to fashion an argument that this government is not managing its program well. In addition to that, many of the bills have also been referred—by agreement and not opposed by this government—off to Senate inquiries to be dealt with by Senate committees so that time spent in this parliament in committee stage and also in dealing with second readings will be reduced to assist those making those contributions.

Of course, many of those inquiries are being pushed back because of the number that have been sent. Be that as it may, the reporting dates on that available legislation will fall in the second week that we are here in parliament. I also want the opposition to commit to finalising those bills that the government needs before we go to the end-of-year break. If you are going to complain about the lack of legislation available then I assume you will also agree to additional hours when we require time to finalise the program. I assume that you will also agree to ensuring that we can facilitate debate to ensure we can complete the legislative program as outlined and given you to a week earlier. In addition, I assume that in the second week you will also cooperate in ensuring that we can finalise that legislative program.

It would be stunning to me if you did that, because you have not been doing that in the last three years that we have been in this place and you have been in opposition. This is not only an act of all of those who sit opposite; they are the acts of both the manager and the previous manager, who have not ensured that they provide additional hours of work. They have not ensured additional provision of time to provide for the legislative program to be dealt with in this place. Why? It is because they do not want to be here. That is the only conclusion that I can come to: they do not want to contribute to debate in this place. (Time expired)

Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and Fair Competition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I almost feel sorry for the Manager of Government Business, Senator Ludwig, when he has to come here and defend this government’s management of the legislative program—that is, until he starts talking about the opposition. I think it was in the last session, in the days when the government was knifing the then Prime Minister, the member for Griffith, that this opposition facilitated the transaction of nearly two dozen pieces of legislation in almost a single Senate sitting day.

The mismanagement of this chamber falls squarely at the feet of this government. You cannot bring in reams of legislation in the last fortnight and expect them to be given due scrutiny. It may be easy to manage members on the other side, but on this side individual senators take their responsibility seriously. What we are truthfully seeing here, despite the rather half-hearted defence of the government by Senator Ludwig, is that this government has simply no agenda.

The only thing that holds this government together is the pursuit of power. Since being returned several weeks ago in what had to be the most humiliating and embarrassing judgment on a first-term government in seven decades, they have drifted from disaster to broken promise to backflip, and a lack of a legislative program indicates this. The contrived empathy that so encapsulated the former Prime Minister has now been replaced by the new Prime Minister with obfuscation and euphemism. The strict promise hours before polling day that there would be no carbon tax has been replaced by the euphemism of a so-called price on carbon, as if when the government collects a revenue from the consumer that it is somehow not a tax. Hours before polling day that promise was made, and hours after taking office the Prime Minister broke that promise and tried to justify it with an Orwellian euphemism.

The broken promises and backflips of the Labor Party cannot hide the fact that the Labor Party is nothing more than a decoy for the pursuit of power. There is no agenda; there is only a commitment to process absent of an outcome. The process itself has become important to this government in order to create the illusion of activity and the illusion of substance. We saw this today, when the Leader of the Government in this place said that the repeal of voluntary student unionism legislation was somehow meant to be taken as a sign of this government’s legislative agenda. Well, if that is your agenda for Australia then I am looking forward to the next election in this place.

The process has become an end in itself for the Labor Party. They simply aim to fill the pages of a newspaper and confect a sense of empathy with the Australian people. They constantly say, ‘We feel your pain,’ but they never actually want to commit to doing anything about it. We saw Fuelwatch, we saw GroceryWatch and we saw the illusion of health reform, but we did not see commitments that could actually be measured. Did any of them impact on fuel prices? No. Did any of them impact on grocery prices? No. They were contrived, confected and simply political stunts. The Prime Minister tries to create the illusion of substance. She makes speeches about reform as if uttering the word alone is enough to justify one’s existence in office. She calls upon the ghosts of Hawke and Keating for strength, but the comparison illustrates that she is really the successor to Rees, Keneally and Bligh—not only in the way in which she took office but also in that her only reason to be in office is to stay there.

The Prime Minister may like to talk about the Hawke and Keating governments and, in comparing this Labor Party to those, so do we. The Hawke and Keating governments, with the support of the opposition, undertook a reform program. They had an agenda. They actually undertook some tax reform, although they baulked at the end of indirect tax and left that for the coalition government and then opposed it. They reformed the Australian economy with the support of the opposition, yet the only things this government can commit to are to somehow increase the size of government and to impose a new tax without any consideration of reducing taxes on consumers in other ways.

You will remember, Mr Deputy President, as you were here, that when the coalition government put up its tax reform agenda there was a tax trade-off. When the previous Labor government, under Prime Minister Hawke, introduced superannuation, there was a wage-tax trade-off. This is the first government in decades in this country that has proposed new taxes to fill its deficit without any consideration of the burden that places on people or business and without any proposal to reduce the taxes people otherwise pay. People do not often speak of legislative programs; they are not always the first thing on people’s minds. But if they want to look at how empty this government’s soul is then they need to look at the fact that there is no serious legislation; there are only broken promises and the only thing the Leader of the Government in this place could say was that he wanted to make students pay compulsory union fees again.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What remarkable contributions from those opposite. I have been in this place serving the Tasmanian community for five years now and it is a great privilege to do that. But to come in here today and to stand up and talk about a legislative program of the nature that the opposition were trying to assert quite frankly does them no favours at all because this is no different to any other time of the year. I want to reiterate, as the minister did in his comments, that on every occasion when we have tried to increase the amount of sitting time or to extend the sitting time those opposite are the first ones out the door.

If we want to talk about the legislation that is on the program for this week it includes the Tax Laws Amendment (2010 Measures No. 4) Bill. The Higher Education Support Amendment Bill, if I recall, was debated last night. There is the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Connecting People with Jobs) Bill. We also have the National Health Amendment (Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme) Bill and the Telecommunications Legislation Amendment (Competition and Consumer Safeguards) Bill. I think the contributions that senators make in relation to the address-in-reply to the Governor-General’s speech are significant. It was a very important speech that was delivered in this place outlining the program that this government has. Obviously, it really narks those opposite because they cannot come to terms with the fact that the Australian community rejected them. Why did they reject them? It was because they had no plan.

Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You got a great majority.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We had the minister in question time today talking about the National Broadband Network. Senator Abetz, I will take your interjection because you know very well that the leader of the opposition in Tasmania, Mr Will Hodgman, supports the National Broadband Network—I know you do not always get on with him but he did get something right in recent years. Even your good, very close colleague Senator Barnett has come out publicly and said that the National Broadband Network was a contributing factor as to why the Liberals did so very poorly in Tasmania in all five electorates. In your own area in southern Tasmania you should hang your head in shame as to how poorly the Liberals did in Denison.

If we want to talk about our program, let us talk about the economy and let us talk about jobs. Let us talk about the opposition’s record on those in the way you voted and opposed every stimulus package in this place. The Australian community saw through that. They appreciate the fact that this government stood up to ensure that Australian families had jobs and that there was job security. We have things already in place that we have already built on since 2007, one of which is the way we have looked after Australian pensioners. We have given them a pension increase. We have actually delivered tax cuts. We have done more to encourage and support small business than those opposite. When you talk about the government not having any agenda for climate change, I think that is just hilarious. Those sceptics opposite are talking about the government not having a program. Those on this side of the chamber at least are prepared to put the facts on the record in terms of what we are doing.

The most important thing that the Australian people want is a strong economy. They need to know that their representatives are listening to them. We are delivering on the economy. We have done better than any other developed country in the way that we have been able to come out of the global financial crisis. With respect to having no agenda it is us on this side that are ensuring that Australian taxpayers get value for their investment in what the mining tax will deliver. There is also the National Broadband Network and what that will do for health, education, productivity, tourism and small businesses. There are also the jobs that will create. The list goes on and on.

There is what we are doing for education. It was this government that actually invested in infrastructure—the Building the Education Revolution. There are a lot of Liberals turning up at all these school openings. They are the ones who want to have their photos in the school newsletters because they know, as the Tasmanian community knows only too well, particularly in the building industry, what that investment has done. (Time expired)

Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am delighted to contribute to this debate. It was only in June of this year that the Labor Party advised us that they had lost their way and on that occasion had to get rid of their Prime Minister. At least on that occasion they had a way. The simple fact of the matter is that this current Labor government does not know the way. It has no way; it has no direction. Anybody who succeeds in business knows very well that to actually establish and run that business, as indeed government, you need a vision. You need to know what the perfect world is for the people in that country or the business. You need to have a mission that will get you there. You need to have objectives and, heaven forbid, you actually need targets upon which the community can measure you.

This Gillard Labor government can best be described as an LFG—a legislation-free zone. For those who come into this place and wonder what legislation is, it is designed to give effect to the vision and mission of the government—if only they had one. Legislation is the foundation or the building block upon which the edifice will be constructed. It is in anatomical terms the skeleton around which the body will be formed. If you have legislation, if you have a vision and a mission, if you have objectives and if you have those foundations and skeletons, then you can develop the regulations, the policies, the procedures, the practices and the directives to the civil servants and others that will complete that dynamic entity which we would normally expect to be a successful country. Regrettably, this particular government has none of those.

This government has not participated, for example, in a process of consultation and dialogue. Have we not seen evidence of that around Australia with the failed border protection policies and the failure to consult with communities? It has no structure. This government is moulding nothing to give to the people of Australia on which historians will be able to look back and say, ‘The Gillard government stood for something.’

It was towards the end of the financial year last year and again this year that I recall our whip and those on this side managing the business of the Senate going to the government managers and saying, ‘There is legislation that you’ve got to get passed by 30 June because it has effect in the new financial year.’ So for the government to stand here and say that we have in some way obstructed the management of this place is a joke. I know in June this year they did have other priorities on their minds: getting rid of someone who at least had a way, even if he had lost it. The simple fact of the matter is that this is a formless government. It is an amoeba. It is without spine or structure. It is ground feeding instead of reaching for the stars as we would expect. It is no wonder that this government in fact was not elected.

If I think of the concepts of vision and mission and business planning, there is no better illustration of the failure of this government than the NBN. In my own speech on the NBN last year, I tried to impress on Senator Conroy that the starting point of any venture, let alone the biggest in Australia’s history at $43,000 million, is a business plan, and within that business plan you would create the vision and mission—and, amongst other things, you would have a cost-benefit analysis. Senator Conroy, in his usual way, stood there and derided us. Here we are, 12 months later, and there still has been no business plan released. And, if in fact there is no cost-benefit analysis within that business plan, it speaks simply to the incompetence and arrogance of the government.

Even in Senator Conroy’s own answer today to Senator Birmingham, taking two minutes with all of the interjections, all the points of order and with his ministerial colleagues around him, he still could not answer the question. When he actually mentioned it, in the final seconds before his time expired, the figure was $437 million of infrastructure at 30 June; in fact, the figure is $453 million. If he had spent more time actually addressing himself to the issue and if this government spent some time addressing itself to legislation, we would not find the amoeba like condition and performance of the Gillard government.

Question agreed to.