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senate vote 2018-06-20#5
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2023-07-07 08:08:22
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Title
Business — Consideration of Legislation- Business - Consideration of Legislation - Speed things along
Description
<p class="speaker">Mathias Cormann</p><p>I move:</p>-
- The majority voted in favour of a [motion](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?gid=2018-06-20.121.1):
- > *That the question on the amendment be now put.*
- This motion ends debate and instead the Senate votes on [the question](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/divisions/senate/2018-06-20/6) straight away.
<p class="italic">That a motion relating to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Personal Income Tax Plan) Bill 2018 may be moved immediately and determined without amendment or debate.</p> <p class="speaker">Scott Ryan</p><p>Senator Collins, are you rising?</p> <p class="speaker">Jacinta Collins</p><p>I'm rising to speak on that motion.</p> <p class="speaker">Scott Ryan</p><p>It is moved without amendment or debate. I'm taking advice from the Clerk. Senator Collins, you were correct. You are entitled to speak; my apologies.</p> <p class="speaker">Jacinta Collins</p><p>Senator Cormann might be in the position that we all are in relation to the motion that he has circulated, because the procedure for dealing with these issues is that indeed he does seek to move a motion without amendment or debate. The problem is the Senate as a whole doesn't understand the detail of the motion and its implications.</p> <p class="speaker">Scott Ryan</p><p>Sorry, Senator Collins. There has been a little confusion here at the Clerk's table, and conflicting advice. I ask for a moment to resolve it. On the basis that there is conflicting advice, I'm going to defer to the Senate having the right to debate it. We'll seek advice from the actual Clerk, who's currently not in the chamber. Senator Collins, please continue.</p> <p class="speaker">Jacinta Collins</p><p>Thank you, Mr President. I commend you on that decision. Senator Cormann is in a flurry because he doesn't want the Senate to fully understand the implications of the motion that he's seeking precedence to move. Let me give you one example amongst opposition senators that we have been dealing with in the last few minutes. The question was: how does this impact on today's program? What does it mean for the remainder of the program? The motion that's been circulated appears to mean that when we get back to government business on the Red, which is item 19—when we get through all the other business this afternoon and get to item 19—if we haven't reached 6.30 by then, we'll have whatever the remainder of the time is. That is what the government is proposing. I would highlight to senators who have circulated amendments that are on the running sheet here to consider: if they support precedence now to deal with this motion, how much time will we be allowing for consideration of their own amendments?</p><p>Let's look at what might happen here if we allow the government to abuse Senate processes and have this process occur. What will happen is that we will move through business on a Wednesday as we ordinarily do—if you're lucky, under normal arrangements, you might only have about half an hour more of government business—and this tax plan that the government is moving, phases 1, 2 and 3, may receive only an hour and a half of committee-stage consideration in the Senate. An hour and a half! What are you hiding? There is no rush. There is no urgency; I'll come to the detail about the lack of urgency in a moment. But I do ask senators to consider: do you really want to allow precedence for this minister to move a motion that will circumvent proper consideration of the government's tax plan? If you allow precedence, that is where we will be going.</p><p>We still have before the committee-stage consideration amendments by Senator Storer, a class by the opposition, a separate class by the opposition, Senator Storer, Centre Alliance and the opposition again. Indeed, we've dealt with the final block but only one block of all of the amendments here. Of course, what's generated this dummy spit is that, in managing the committee-stage consideration, the opposition went immediately to the critical issue and the Senate determined an outcome that the government doesn't like. I ask those senators who joined with the opposition and the Greens to vote down stage 3 to consider common sense here: if you agree to precedence, and if you agree to this motion, you're basically compromising yourself. You're saying, 'I oppose stage 3 but I'm going to circumvent any consideration of the other stages and I'm going to fast-track this back to the House of Representatives.'</p><p>Then comes the next danger of interpretation in this motion. Have a very close look at paragraph (c) in the motion, and read the last phrase in (c): when the message comes back from the House of Representatives, it will be dealt with 'immediately without amendment or debate'. What this government is trying to do is the extraordinary thing of removing your own prerogative. Why would you support it? It makes no sense. This is an enormous dummy spit by Senator Cormann because he did not succeed with stage 3. Now he's asking senators to compromise their own capacity in relation to dealing with this matter.</p><p>You saw just a moment ago that the government needed to even get advice about how to move forward with the guillotine, because they didn't know when senators could speak. Fortunately, I do know it is our prerogative to address this issue, and we should do so. We should allow time for all senators to understand what this motion really means. So, on the face of it, I and others thought, 'Oh, we're going immediately into this.' Well, we're not. We'll get to it at item 19 on the Red, if we even get there before 6.30. And guess what's going to happen at 6.30? At 6.30, we're going to roll through votes. You won't have the opportunity to ask any questions. You won't be able to query the government about how one thing or another with stages 1 or 2 might operate. They are completely avoiding scrutiny of this package. They are removing the Senate's power to review. Our critical and core responsibility is what is at stake here. That is what this motion does. I would be stunned if a well-informed senator would agree to have their powers compromised in this fashion.</p><p>But let's get to some of the other facts of the matter here. Let's go back to Senator Birmingham's discussion about the urgency. There is no urgency other than the government's desire to spin together some political whim. Let's address these tax issues. Labor supports stage 1. So there's no urgency on that one. In fact, it's a refund. You've got until June-July 2019 for it to be dealt with administratively, so there is no immediate urgency on that. Step 2 doesn't come into effect until 1 July 2022—48 months away. Step 3 doesn't come into effect until 1 July 2024—72 months away—up to two terms of the parliament. The other element of this picture that hasn't really been well explained by the government is why they are relying on standing order 142. They're basically asking the Senate to again limit its power, limit its capacity, to consider issues in debate. I encourage senators who are considering this issue to have a look at section 142 in the standing orders. For crossbenchers, the standing orders are in your drawers. Have a look at it. Pull it out. Look at standing order 142.</p> <p class="speaker">Gavin Marshall</p><p>Page 79.</p> <p class="speaker">Jacinta Collins</p><p>Thank you very much, Senator Marshall.</p> <p class="speaker">Eric Abetz</p><p>So they don't need questions answered.</p> <p class="speaker">Jacinta Collins</p><p>What was that? What don't they need, Senator Abetz? They don't need to be informed! Okay. Senator Abetz says you don't need to be informed.</p> <p class="speaker">Scott Ryan</p><p>Senator Abetz, on a point of order.</p> <p class="speaker">Eric Abetz</p><p>Just for the record, what Senator Collins asserted is false.</p> <p class="speaker">Scott Ryan</p><p>Senator Abetz, that is not a point of order.</p> <p class="speaker">Jacinta Collins</p><p>If I misheard Senator Abetz, I invite him to tell me what the real interjection was. If you make an interjection like that in debates, you will get a response. So, perhaps you would like to tell the crossbench what your real interjection was. I believe I heard what I said. If I'm not right, well, fair enough. But let's go back to the important issue here. This revision that the government is using is about getting senators to agree to a limitation of debate on bills. Don't agree to that sort of thing easily. You need to understand that there has been consultation, that there is some urgency and that there is a justification to essentially pass away your powers to ensure that matters are addressed properly. These are the issues that the government has not addressed. They criticise Labor when we are in government—call us hypocrites—but the fact is that in those stages we achieved agreement to manage the Senate program, because senators, including the crossbenchers, were frustrated with how this government conducted itself in opposition.</p><p>This is not the case here. The case here is that during question time the government alerted us, with no notice, that they were going to move this motion, and they are now suggesting that we should give it precedence. We should not give it precedence, because there is no urgency. Since there is no urgency, I now move the following amendment to the motion:</p><p class="italic">That the words 'without amendment or debate' be deleted from paragraph (c).</p><p>I want all senators to be aware that they should not easily allow the government to slip into an amendment that they should relinquish their power to amend and debate any matter. To do that is essentially passing on your responsibilities as a senator, without due consideration. The other element at stake here is the lack of consultation—</p> <p class="speaker">Deborah O'Neill</p><p>Shameful.</p> <p class="speaker">Jacinta Collins</p><p>Shameful lack of consultation and even poor understanding about what it is they're proposing, what the motion is and what procedure should be considered going forward. I believe it highlights that the government wants to rush this through to avoid scrutiny.</p><p>Earlier, Senator Wong referred to it as a dummy-spit—in fact I think she might have borrowed my words from sitting behind her at the time. That's our reflection on how Senator Cormann responded to the limited amount of consideration in detail being given to these matters ahead of question time. It seemed that at first the government didn't quite understand what had happened. Then, obviously, once they had realised what had happened they tried to convince some unsuspecting senators that they should relinquish their powers. I can't understand why any senator would do that, especially in a situation where we've had these bills before us for a limited time only. We facilitated the second reading debate last night and we've had only about an hour of committee-stage consideration, and there was no notice ahead of question time that the government was going to attempt to circumvent that.</p><p>During question time, the manager was running around talking to crossbench senators, asking, 'How about this?' Don't agree to things under those circumstances. Get some advice. At least consider dealing with these issues about urgency or limitations on considerations after allowing yourself to be properly informed about what is really occurring here. On reading this motion, senators who have been in this place for quite some time at first believed we were going straight into the bill. That is not what I believe is proposed in this motion. It will occur when we get to item 19.</p><p>As I've pointed out, the more concerning element in paragraph (c)—and it is critical we make this point at this stage, because the government might again attempt to rob us of any opportunity to amend the next motion—is the issue of our dealing with a response from the House, without amendment or debate. This is outrageous. Had the government consulted us in relation to this motion, these are, of course, the points, after advice from the Clerk, that we would have been able to respond to. But we didn't have the opportunity to even seek advice from the Clerk. You saw a moment ago—consider this, Senators—that the Leader of the Government was in a flurry over understanding the motion that he was putting. He needed to seek advice from the clerks. On the floor we had to pause the consideration of the chamber for him to get advice from the clerk.</p> <p class="speaker">Deborah O'Neill</p><p>Making it up as they go.</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>-
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