Andrew Murray (WA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I need to restate an essential position that I think needs to be repeated and clearly articulated. Before us is an amendment to which the government is opposed not in policy terms but in timing terms. What worries me is that the rejection of this amendment by the government at this time seems to be founded not on strategy or good policy considerations but on some kind of spite. I find that unacceptable. I know that the concerns of Senator Joyce and others in the areas of trade practices law and the deregulation of the petroleum market have upset many of his coalition colleagues, but those opinions are honestly held and honestly presented and I cannot condemn any senator for such an approach. But to say to small business that, because there has been that sort of disagreement within the coalition ranks, you cannot have the amendments to strengthen the Trade Practices Act—which the government actually agrees with—is, I think, rather spiteful. If the government is determined that what are known as the Dawson amendments—which, by the way, include an amendment which is absolutely not Dawson, which tries to get rid of the unions’ ability to bargain on behalf of business; but do not let me get started on that anti-choice thing—should be part of a package, why aren’t we debating Dawson, the petrol bill and the small business bill altogether? Then we could be done with it and it could pass.

It is unusual for me to use language like this, but it upsets me. The chamber is probably aware that I have been campaigning on this for a long time and I feel strongly about it. It upsets me because it does not seem to be the right way to handle parliamentary matters that affect the community at large. Because of the disagreement within the coalition ranks, because the Dawson bill was not passed in toto—by the way, it was passed: only schedule 1 was in limbo; the rest could have passed—we are not in a situation where the government is prepared to deal with small business, trade practices strengthening amendments now. Yet it is prepared to deregulate the market now. It is a very odd circumstance.

The minister at the table, the Minister for Finance and Administration, Senator Minchin, is not responsible for this strategy—he is not the portfolio minister—but, through him, I say to the minister that I am really disappointed that the cabinet did not see fit to bring forward the retail petroleum bills, the Dawson bill and the small business bills together so that we could review these as a package and resolve what we all regard as seriously interconnected issues. Having restated my aggravation on this matter, which I should not go on about any more, we Democrats think the opposition amendments are worthy of consideration and support.

Through the chair, I say to the shadow minister that we did not include your section 95ZEA amendments in our amendment batch, because they did not come from Senator Stephens’s majority report. We were focused on making sure those amendments came through. We are not sure that what you have proposed will fit the bill completely, but we are sure that you are going in the right direction. I have been criticised in the Senate for arguing that the ACCC is not being allowed, both by law and by direction, to get behind the corporate veil of those who control the petroleum supply in this country. Of course, if the ACCC got behind the corporate veil they might not find anything because there might not be anything to find. But they do not have equivalent powers to ASIC and ASX, and there are not circumstances that apply with ASIC and ASX such as continuous disclosure, the requirement to report in certain ways and the requirement to investigate in the area of prices, costs and profits.

This is a matter which concerns the Australian community, so the Democrats think the opposition is going in the right direction with this amendment. I am not certain that it is phrased perfectly; I would not know that. I would encourage the government, even though it is bound to be rejecting this as well, to think more about what it could do to ensure that the ACCC is able to do as good a regulatory job with respect to this area of concern as ASIC is allowed to do in other fields.