Senate debates

Tuesday, 23 September 2014

Adjournment

Senate Procedures

8:30 pm

Photo of Barry O'SullivanBarry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | | Hansard source

Today I felt a little bit cheated, as we had quite energetic exchanges and debates here this afternoon on a motion I refer to as the Labor/PUP motion to investigate Queensland's government, because for some weeks now I have been limbering up; I have been researching, making notes, refining my notes, applying Deep Heat and getting ready for the big event, only to be denied the opportunity to make some very important points about what I see as a complete abuse of the processes of this Senate.

For the first time in the seven months since I have been here, I have seen a motion proposed in this place that had an inbuilt guillotine. The motion was meant to gag debate in this place before debate even started. I understand why that was so, particularly for my colleagues from the Australian Labor Party, because a very high percentage of them did not believe in the thrust of the motion. They were offended by the fact that the party had joined with PUP in this manoeuvre which was nothing less than an abuse of the privileges of the Senate of our nation.

We watched as events unfolded and saw that the movers of the motion never wanted the debate and, in fact, when amendments were afforded, they did not want a debate on the amendments. Of course, their efforts in this regard failed dismally. The third element of this motion that offended the principles of this place was that the motion completely ignored constitutional provisions relating to the issue of comity, which has to do with the principle that this place should not investigate the House of Representatives, and neither the House of Representatives nor the federal Senate should engage in investigating state governments. Indeed, state governments themselves should not engage in investigations of the federal government in any form, nor of other state governments. This is a principle that has been around since the beginning of time. This fragile Commonwealth of states we have, this federation of states, is based on principles that allowed our forebears—our forefathers—to make the decision to create the federation. It was based on principles that allowed them to support the decision across this nation and one of those very important issues was to allow the states to have autonomy to get on and do what it was they needed to do without fear that the federal government would investigate those moves.

This was not just some select committee to have a look at some things—I have heard references made to a dam and to gambling in Victoria; I have heard all sort of precedent arguments. This is not any of that. This is akin to a royal commission by one house of the federal parliament into a state house. If none of that offended anybody—if none of that challenged the principle of democracy in this government—then one needs to look at the make-up of the committee. I do not intend to deal with all of that, but one thing I do know is that the Palmer party was supported right to the death today by the Australian Labor Party, to the Labor Party's long-lasting embarrassment. They were supporting a committee made up of five or six people, representatives from this place, representing less than two per cent of the appointments to the Senate. There was to be a representative from the House of Representatives who, while not physically on the committee, would obviously have control of the committee—in the sense that Mr Palmer would have been governing what his Three Musketeers intended to do as a result of this being passed by the Senate.

Again, the fig leaf came off with the last-minute amendment to make sure the leader of the PUP was also the chairman of the committee. This was not something that was circulated; nobody was given notice of this, and it was ultimately meant to give ironclad control of this committee to Mr Palmer.

Senator Moore interjecting

I listen to colleagues from the Labor Party now, making a fuss. I lost respect for any number of your members this afternoon when you failed to support an amendment to this to allow this investigation to go ahead.

The Acting Deputy President:

Order! The senator will direct his comments through the chair.

Photo of Barry O'SullivanBarry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | | Hansard source

My apologies. Madam Acting Deputy President, I say through you that members of the Australian Labor Party today failed themselves, and did so in such an open manner, in failing to support the amendment to broaden the time frame of this investigation. There was not one challenge to one word within the motion, just a challenge to the time frame to allow this examination, if it were to proceed, to include the Queensland branch of the Australian Labor Party. If you came in behind it, different people had different motivations in this exercise. Palmer's was clear. Mr Palmer has not even endeavoured to disguise his interest in this inquiry, because it can be found in section 1, subsections (c) and (d), which talk about the approval processes for resource applications in the state of Queensland—given that the matter is under the Queensland government. There is a reason for this. He has failed to achieve what he wants in the manner that he tried—and it is well recorded in Queensland. He has failed through all levels of courts in Queensland. He has failed through his public attempts to embarrass the Queensland government. So he has to resort to an attempt to take control of this Senate.

We in Queensland are tired of Palmersauruses and Palmer resorts and Palmer nickel factories and Palmer airlines. And I was going to see that there was no way in the world that we were going to have a Palmer Senate, which is what colleagues were endeavouring to support here with this motion this afternoon.

But what is it that would attract the Labor Party to support the Palmer party? It certainly was not that. The clue is found in the section of the motion that talks about the reporting date being 'on or before 31 March 2015'. Well, that date is well known in my home state. It is well known to the opposition. It is well known to the tiny little Labor Party that languishes in the corner of the legislative assembly in Queensland. And what they have in common is: they want to disturb the current government in their efforts to lift their political fortunes in my state. This was a method to allow them to travel around the state, at enormous cost to the Commonwealth—probably in excess of $1 million, when one looks at the logistics of this particular motion—and bring in every fool, every deadbeat, every burnt-out trade union member, every disgruntled public servant, and give them the absolute privilege of this place to say whatever they liked about the Queensland government, about the Premier and about the LNP government.

And yet, up until that point today, not one word had ever come out of the Labor opposition here challenging the integrity of the Queensland government—not one. Not once have they called for an inquiry into the corruption of the Queensland government. This was just a fortuitous Palmer bus that was coming past, with a couple of big running rails; it slowed down as it got up beside Senator Wong and others, and they all climbed on board. Well, I can tell you that it ran out of fuel here this afternoon at about 5.15, or whatever time it was. It ran out of fuel. It was an embarrassing stop. And I think that we need to pay heightened attention to these manoeuvres, to see that the integrity of this place is preserved. (Time expired)