Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I hope it is in the Hansard now. An inquiry into Ms Bligh and all of your corrupt ministers and officials, the Tahitian prince—

Senator O'Sullivan interjecting—

I might even get Senator Whish-Wilson to move the motion at this committee and we will have them along. Senator Whish-Wilson, you have almost made my day. But I am absolutely sure that when it comes down to it—when the chips are on the table—you will back down as you always do, because you will not do anything that in any way brings any accountability to any Labor government.

But I have been distracted from the point I was making. This one-stop shop is not about having a one-stop shop for the sake of having a one-stop shop; it is about jobs in Australia. It is about our fellow Australians who currently are unemployed. You only have to look at the newspapers today and over the last couple of days to see that those who should know are clearly indicating the impact that this dual environmental system has on jobs on Australia. Regrettably, time will not allow me to go through this in any detail, but I will read from the first page of one daily newspaper, which says:

THE nation's largest business groups have accused Clive Palmer and the Greens of risking 70,000 jobs and harming housing affordability with their pact to block environmental approval reforms in return for a Senate inquiry into the Queensland government.

I have said before that I do not fear an inquiry into the Queensland government—in fact, I would almost welcome it. I know the Queensland government—I am a Queenslander. I know what a fabulous job it has done in correcting Labor's mismanagement over the previous 20 or so years. But I would not agree to that inquiry, or to an inquiry into the previous Bligh Labor government, with ministers who are now serving time in jail for bribery, if I knew it was going to cost my fellow Australians—70,000 of them—their jobs. That in itself is a disgrace. It is this Labor Party—allegedly the workers' party, allegedly the party for the poor and the disadvantaged, allegedly the party that sticks up for blue-collar workers—that, because of its rotten deal with the Palmer United Party and with the Greens, will cost 70,000 of my fellow Australians their jobs.

I just cannot understand where the unions are when this is coming to bear. We read all about union corruption—most of us have known about that for a long time. It is all being put on the record now with the royal commission. But there are, I suggest, many unionists who are genuine in their job and genuine in their desire to look after the rights of workers and to get workers the best right they can ever have—the right to have a job. Here is an opportunity for those honest members of the union movement to say, 'We are more interested in jobs for our members rather than a dirty, dodgy deal between the Greens, the Palmer United Party and the Labor Party over an inquiry into Queensland that will go nowhere.' And it will go nowhere. I suspect the High Court might well have something to say about that. We have so many issues before this parliament at the moment, and here are the Greens, the Labor Party and the Palmer United Party sending a number of senators and all the Senate staff and all the Hansard staff on a wild witch hunt around Queensland, taking evidence from any disaffected person who has a grudge and wants to defame someone under parliamentary privilege. That is what this government has come down to.

I return to the subject of the debate. As I have been indicating all along, this is really a debate about the incompetence of the Labor government and its inability to make any decision about anything and its susceptibility to dodgy, dirty deals of the type we have seen lately. As I mentioned earlier, the coalition, when it decides on matters like fish stocks and harvest strategies, relies not on politicians like Senator Bilyk and Senator Whish-Wilson, who frankly know absolutely nothing—we get people who are trained in fisheries science to make the decisions. We are waiting for an expert panel report and we have asked for additional science on fish stocks. We want to build public confidence in the fishery and we will not support Labor's bad legislation. When this legislation came forward last time it was so bad that it needed amendment within hours of introduction. Labor clearly do not understand fisheries or fisheries management. They were so hopeless that their bill banned all recreational charter fishing vessels—that is how good Labor was. That had to be amended almost before the ink had dried.

I repeat that on this issue of fisheries we will make decisions based on science, not on the uninformed drivel and twaddle of Senator Whish-Wilson or Senator Bilyk or anyone else in the Labor Party. We have asked for more data to address criticism regarding the age of the data used to establish fish stocks. We want Australian fisheries to be the best—as they have been. We have a reputation for having the best managed fisheries in the world, bar none. That will continue because we have, under Liberal and National Party governments, placed the decisions we make on science from experts who know what they are talking about. We do not make decisions on the basis of temporary political advantage that the Greens and the Labor Party can organise in their dishonest campaigns on this and many other matters. This bill should be sent where it belongs—the rubbish bin.