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

I was not aware that we were going past 6.50 pm, but I am very happy to continue. There are a number of senators on this side who are involved in Senate committees who hope that we get to the stage where we do have a number of references of matters of public interest—matters that are sometimes controversial—where we will be able to take part in those committees for the benefit of the Australian community.

I still remember being on committees when one was chaired by my good friend former senator Bruce Childs, who I remember made an enormous contribution to this place as a committee chairman. Former Senator Childs, together with former senator Brian Archer, who had been a former chair of the same committee, probably taught me more about the workings of committees in my first two years here than I have learnt since. It is amazing that, with former Senators Childs and Archer, whenever we had controversial subjects—and I do remember one of them being an inquiry into the CSIRO, which I do not think it would be bad to have another inquiry into in the public interest—we always managed to come up with unanimous reports. I think, Acting Deputy President Chapman, you may have even been involved in the same inquiry.

I think it is important that we change the structure, because right now there are some references committees that have no work to do. There are some that have no work to do because this Senate is not referring matters.

Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are blocking them.

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

Yes, we are. We are not referring them to the Senate committees, because we know the opposition has the majority on the committees and we are not prepared to send them there because of the political nature the inquiry will have. I hope that we get to the stage where we will be able to send matters.

A number of comments have been made publicly in the last couple of days that I want to comment on. I am particularly disappointed by the public comments of the Clerk of the Senate. I know that some people think that it is unfair to criticise comments made by the Clerk of the Senate, but when he enters the public arena as an official of this place, putting a point of view which cannot be challenged publicly—he is not elected; the public have no say in his tenure—I think I can. He said:

It’s pretty clear legislation won’t get amended unless the Government amends it.

That is logic. We do have the numbers in this place, and that is all there is to it. He also said:

Committees won’t be allowed to inquire into anything embarrassing.

I do not know who the Clerk is to decide what the government does and does not allow. He continued:

Committees are given less time to look at bills.

That is true in some cases, because in the past we have had caravans unnecessarily going all around the country looking into pieces of legislation and getting repetitious evidence. I remember the first industrial relations bill, where we had the same union appear before our committee in six different states saying exactly the same thing off exactly the same prompt sheet from the ACTU. The Clerk also said:

Estimate hearings have been shortened.

The opposition never even used the time that was available during the two weeks of estimates. We had a number of estimates committees that knocked off at seven o’clock at night—they knocked off early.

Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In Health and Ageing we would have used more time if—

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

Senator Webber, I am stating the facts, because I was on the committees that finished early. If you cannot use all the time that is currently available, I cannot see how you can say that the committees are being shortened and that spillover days have been knocked off. There was not enough questioning to make the committees last four days. I was even more surprised when one of the opposition senators said to me, ‘The shadow minister hasn’t sent us enough questions.’ I thought that was a rather poor way of putting it, because I remember our time in opposition when we had to supply our own questions; they did not come from the shadow ministers.

I am very pleased to quote Michelle Grattan’s article this morning, where she said:

Despite its reduced clout, the Senate has certain natural stabilisers. When the minority parties lose power, the task of scrutiny falls more heavily to the government’s own.

I think that that is a very fair comment from Michelle Grattan. You only have to take the reports that have been tabled in the last couple of weeks by the Joint Standing Committee on Migration and one other committee to show that the government’s own people are carefully scrutinising some of these things that are taking place.

Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Citizenship and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Then we might as well all go home.

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

No. I will take that interjection, Senator Hurley. I do not know whether you were on the migration committee, but that unanimous committee report was written in conjunction with both opposition and government members. Both sides made a significant contribution. So you may feel that you want to go home, Senator Hurley, but I can tell you that I have been in this place for some time now and I have worked on many committees where unanimous results have been arrived at by concessions on both sides in order to make sure that unanimous reports have been presented. I will not name the committees, but there are certain committees that quite notorious for arriving at unanimous results.

Some mention was made of a reduction of Senate staff. When Senate staff—currently the same staff—have to service both legislation and reference committees, there is tremendous pressure on those staff. If they only had one committee to look after, they would be able to do it in a far more efficient manner. There is no suggestion, and never has been, that any staff are likely to lose their positions. When Senator Minchin talked about efficiencies, he was talking about the staff working for one committee instead of for two. So the enormous hours that some secretariat staff work just to get reports out will not be doubled up in the same manner that they are now.

I was disappointed by some of the comments of Senator Murray. He said that Senate staff will be reduced and that the resources available to senators to carry out inquiries will be reduced as they will be under government control. To the best of my knowledge, up until 1994 none of those things prevailed. I know that Senator Murray was not here until 1996, nor were a number of other people, but those who were present prior to 1994 know how efficiently the one-committee system can work.

Senator Ray made mention of the change in the committee system in 1994 and how it came about. If the system of dual committees is so good, I guess we should raise the question: why didn’t the Labor Party introduce it in 1983? Labor are saying that they felt the system was very poor previously, where we had one committee, where the government chaired every committee and where the government had the numbers on every committee although they had a minority in this chamber, except on one occasion—in 1984 they had a majority in this chamber, but on all other occasions they did not have a majority in this chamber. Labor chaired these committees for 10 years, but the Labor Party are now saying that the system was so poor between 1983 and 1994 that they changed it. They did not change it because of that at all. They changed it because it reflected the numbers in this chamber when they only had 30 members and the coalition had 36. It was changed by way of negotiation and, because of the very skilled negotiations of Senator Ray, we finished up with the current system. I am not one who believes that the system was broken in 1994. It reflected the numbers in the chamber, not whether the system was not working as well as it should.

I have been commenting about Senator Andrew Murray, and I am pleased that he is now in the chair so that if I say anything else he will be able to hear me directly. However, I do not believe that the comments that he made on this carried as much weight as many of the contributions he has made to the Senate.

Senator Evans talked about corrupting the role of the Senate. Does that mean that the role of the Senate was totally corrupt between 1983 and 1994? I do not believe it was. I am sure that Senator Faulkner does not believe that the role of the committees was corrupt between 1983 and 1994. I will be interested to hear whether he stands up and says he does think it was corrupt. I certainly do not believe it was corrupt and I do not believe that democracy was more difficult to practise either. The government happens to hold the numbers in this place and, by virtue of that, it is quite fair to say, it now controls what references go to committees and whether or not select committees will be set up for any particular purpose.

The move that has been proposed by the Leader of the Government in the Senate is not one that has just happened overnight; it is one that we as coalition senators have thought about for 12 months. It is not, as Senator Bob Brown says, something that comes out of the Prime Minister’s office. As a matter of fact, we had to go to the Prime Minister’s office to convince him of the merit of the proposal that we are putting forward. It is not about money, as Senator Ray said, and never has been. I calculated right from the very start that it was likely that, if they chose to make payments to deputy chairs of joint committees and House of Representatives committees, depending on the rate of salary that the Remuneration Tribunal might recommend for deputy chairs, it could cost in the vicinity of $300,000 or $400,000 a year. In the context of a total budget, I do not think that that is an expenditure that is over the top, although it may have taken us some time to convince those who control the purse strings that that is the way.

I know that Senator Faulkner is following me in this debate. I would like to give him nearly his 20 minutes. But can I say that I totally support the amendment to this motion. As Senator Ray said, we are giving the Procedure Committee the opportunity to discuss this. It is important that the Procedure Committee has a chance to discuss this. If the opposition thinks that 10 is not the correct number of committees then the Procedure Committee and the coalition members on that committee will be very prepared to listen to the arguments. I hope that at the end of the considerations by the Procedure Committee we come up with something that we can all agree on. I know we will not agree on the principle, but I hope that we can agree to some of the matters that are going to be raised by collapsing the committees into one single committee. I hope that that can be achieved by the Procedure Committee. I know that coalition members on that committee, of which I am one, are very prepared to listen and consider.

John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also support the proposal that stands in the name of Senator Evans for this matter to be referred to the Procedure Committee—as, I believe, is appropriate for any change to the operations or standing orders of the Senate. I thought I might commence my contribution tonight by making a very clear point about the approach the opposition have taken to the Senate. The Australian Labor Party have many critics, but one thing we cannot be criticised for is the fact that we have been very consistent about what we view as being the appropriate role for the Australian Senate. We have said that the Senate is at its best when it is undertaking its proper role of scrutiny and review. That is the primary function of this chamber. We in the Labor Party have always understood that governments are not made or unmade in this chamber, but there is a proper role for the Senate, a crucial and important role for the Senate, and that is its accountability and scrutiny role.

The Senate committee system is of course a fundamental element of that accountability role. It is the key element of that role. There is no doubt in my mind that the Senate’s committee system is the best accountability mechanism that this parliament has. There is no doubt at all that that is the case. In fact, I am convinced that the Senate’s committee system is the best accountability mechanism we have in any parliament in this country. It stands at least with the best accountability mechanisms in the world. There is none better.

The modern committee system has developed since 1970, when massive reforms were driven by the then leader of the opposition and leader of the Labor Party in the Senate, the late Senator Lionel Murphy. As for the current committee system, we have heard something about the history of its development. It is true that this chamber agreed in August 1994 to a new system of paired committees. That period of the last Keating government, from 1993 to 1996, saw massive changes to the procedures and standing orders of this Senate. It saw massive changes to the way the Senate did business.

I am fairly well versed in those changes because, for the entire period of that parliament, as a minister in the Keating government, I was the Manager of Government Business in the Senate and I had responsibility for oversight of these issues. It was not just changes to the Senate committee system, as senators who were present at the time would know. We had major changes to the routine of business in this place, to the length of second reading speeches—a raft of very substantial changes were made to the way the Senate worked, the way the Senate did its business. You have heard some of the history of this from Senator Ray, who during that period was the Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate. In August 1994 he was the acting manager of government business. I am pleased to say it was one of the two periods in which I have ever, in my 17 years in this parliament, taken leave from the chamber. Senator Ray was passed the baton and had the job of making sure that those changes to the Senate committee system passed this chamber. He was also responsible for negotiating the changes. We did a huge amount of work behind the scenes in the Procedure Committee, where this sort of work ought to be done, to try to get this system right.

I have to acknowledge that it was not just the Labor Party, the then Labor government, and the then coalition opposition who were involved in the changes. The minor parties were very serious contributors to that outcome, particularly the Australian Democrats, who at that time were better represented in the chamber—in terms of numerical strength—than they are now. They played a very active role. Anyone who cares to revisit the debates of that time will see that that is the case.

We negotiated it out. We talked it through. We solved the problem. We talked through the issues and came up with an appropriate and workable solution. And it has stood the test of time. It was a new concept of paired legislation and references committees, and it has worked well. The fundamental principle was that the government would have the chairs and the majority on the legislation committees, which would have responsibility for the estimates process and legislation, and that the references committees would have a broader remit in relation to matters referred to them by the Senate. It did actually work well. I would say that you cannot argue against the fact that, in the 35 years since the Senate’s committee system was developed, it has been honed and improved.

Today is the first time in 35 years that we are going to see a backwards step. And it is a very substantial backwards step indeed. You have to ask yourself: ‘Why is the Senate committee system, the best accountability mechanism in the Commonwealth parliament, under attack? Why are the government proposing to change it?’ Unfortunately, the answer is clear: the government do not like the role that these committees play. They hate scrutiny. They hate being held accountable for their actions. They do not want this sort of examination of their activities. They do not like this sort of investigation. They just do not like scrutiny at all.

There are many great examples. One example was the Senate Select Committee into a Certain Maritime Incident. That was so effective that the phrases ‘kids overboard’ and ‘children overboard’ have actually gone into the lingo for ‘deceitful actions of government’. Chalk one up to the best parliamentary committee system in the world. Of course, now we do not have any select committees into issues of concern. The government has the numbers in the Senate; no such committee will ever be established. The government has the numbers in the Senate; no reference will go off to an existing committee if it does not suit the government.

The proposal before us leaves many unanswered questions about the operation of the Senate committee system: questions about quorums of committees; the role of the Selection of Bills Committee; the role of participating members in the estimates process; the powers of the committees; and the issue of logistics, which was canvassed by my colleague Senator Ray. It has always been said, and I understand it still to be the case, that as well as the standing orders that limit the number of legislation committees meeting at any one time to four, there is also a limitation because of resources and logistics. There is not the capacity in this parliament to have any more than four legislation committees meeting at any one time. I want to ask the minister, when she responds later in this debate, whether she will guarantee that the new committees proposed by the government will retain the powers of existing committees. I think this Senate is entitled to an answer to that question. I want to ask the minister whether the government will guarantee that estimates hearings will continue with no further limitations on time and certainly no restriction on their scope. I ask Senator Coonan to respond to that as well.

You see, the government is seeking complete control over committee processes. This chamber determines which references go to committees, and since the government established a majority in this place on 1 July 2005, 16 references to committees have been knocked off—nine from the opposition, six from the Australian Greens and one from Family First. All of this is the gift of the government. Any one of those could have gone forward if the government had agreed with it. A huge number of references have not been referred by the Senate and yet the references committee workload is starting to reduce. It is a deliberate strategy, a deliberate tactic, on the part of the government, and it is going to get worse.

One minor advantage at the moment is that if you eventually get a reference at least the non-government majority on a committee can determine issues in relation to the conduct of the inquiry. That will absolutely change. This is part and parcel of a step-by-step destruction of the Senate’s roles and powers. There are all sorts of examples of this: the new limits in relation to opposition questioning in question time; the cover-up in relation to questions relating to AWB in estimates; the reduced number of committee references that have gone forward; the use of the guillotine; the use of the gag; and now a proposal that the committees themselves become vassals of the government.

This really is the ultimate winner-take-all approach to politics. It is the ultimate in arrogance from the government. I am not surprised that the government will go to this extent to avoid scrutiny. I am not surprised that the government goes to the extent of dismantling parliamentary institutions and the mechanisms of accountability that we have. The way this government operates and conducts itself, which is underhanded and shady in my view, can only thrive if people do not know what is going on. It can only thrive in the dark. Of course, the government thinks it will be easier to get away with this deceit if they gut the Senate committee system. Maybe they are right; I am sure they are. In the short term they will be right. They will think that if they gut the Senate committee system then parliament will not catch up with what they are doing.

I say, and I have always said, in government and in opposition, that a strong committee system might be good for oppositions, it is obviously good for parliament, and it is good for governments as well. It is an excellent thing if an official or minister can think twice before a corner is cut or before the approach of near enough is good enough becomes standard operating procedure—the natural order of things. It is good for government.

I do not know what drives this proposal. I hear from senators on the other side that it is not greed. I believe it is at least small-mindedness. I believe it is at least short-sightedness. I believe that this government always has the view that it is a good time to pay back and pay out on political opponents. But most important of all, it is a lack of acceptance of accountability, and accountability is what the Senate is on about and should be on about—review, examination, scrutiny and accountability. That is what we are best at and that is what we should be able to pursue—opposition, government, minor parties, Independents; all of us. That is the role of the Senate and it is that role that is going to be gutted by this proposal. This is a very serious change to the way the Senate has worked for a very long period of time—for decades. It is a massive step backwards.

Debate interrupted.