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senate vote 2019-07-23#1
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2020-08-21 10:30:15
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Title
Business — Consideration of Legislation- Business - Consideration of Legislation - Future Drought Fund Bill 2019 and another
Description
<p class="speaker">Anne Ruston</p><p>I move:</p><p class="italic">That the provisions of paragraphs (5) to (8) of standing order 111 not apply to the following bills, allowing them to be considered during this period of sittings:</p>- The majority voted against a [motion](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?id=2019-07-23.11.2) introduced by SA Senator [Anne Ruston](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/senate/sa/anne_ruston) (Liberal), which means it failed.
- ### Motion text
- > *That the provisions of paragraphs (5) to (8) of [standing order 111](https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Chamber_documents/Senate_chamber_documents/standingorders/previouseditions/~/~/link.aspx?_id=5845FC0FA06C4184AE526E948368E472&_z=z) not apply to the following bills, allowing them to be considered during this period of sittings:*
- >
- >> *Future Drought Fund Bill 2019*
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- >> *Future Drought Fund (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2019.*
<p class="italic">Future Drought Fund Bill 2019</p><p class="italic">Future Drought Fund (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2019.</p><p class="italic"><i>(Quorum formed)</i></p> <p class="speaker">Janet Rice</p><p>The Greens are opposed to this exemption from the cut-off order. It is absolutely outrageous. Here is a bill that we saw for the first time yesterday afternoon. It was rammed through the House yesterday. The proposal is to ram it through the Senate today, with the collusion of the Labor Party. It is the absolute abrogation of good process in this place. The bill has had significant changes from the last time it was presented to the parliament. There needs to be time for consultation. There are many stakeholders who are concerned about this bill. It would be good governance and, in fact, just polite and respectful to give us the opportunity—and to give the government and the Labor Party the opportunity—to discuss this bill, which has very significant implications. Here we are setting up a drought fund. It is a much-needed fund to provide money for people, communities and farmers struggling with drought. But we've got to make sure that it's the right drought fund, that it is properly set up, that it has good governance. By ramming this legislation through, you are undermining all of that good governance.</p><p>We saw this bill yesterday afternoon. We then immediately moved to work on some proposed amendments to the bill. I really do want to thank the wonderful drafting team here for getting some amendments together, but they should not have been put under the pump, put under pressure, to prepare those amendments in double-quick time. This is just not the way that business should be done if you are concerned about actually having good processes and good governance in this place. There is no reason why this bill needs to be rammed through the Senate today. There is every reason why it should be done appropriately, with the proper consideration that the Senate actually is here to give to legislation. This is why the Greens are absolutely opposed to this exemption from the cut-off order.</p> <p class="speaker">Rachel Siewert</p><p>It was the Greens that helped establish this very process. This process came into being so that this place had time to consider bills when they came in and to stop exactly what this government's trying to do, which is to ram this through this place before we can have proper consideration of this bill and its implications. What is the government scared of in allowing this to get proper scrutiny by the community—in fact, by the very community that this government says that it is trying to help? Let them have a proper look at this legislation, so that we know that they think it's the right legislation. Allow proper scrutiny of this so that a committee reviewing this can actually have advice from the community and from the experts in this area. And, as Senator Rice has just said, we have amendments. We'd be happy to circulate those as well so that people could have a look at those in the committee.</p><p>But, no, the government's too scared of scrutiny. They just want to ram this through at a moment's notice, trashing the Senate's processes—which is what this is about. This process is in place to allow this chamber to perform its proper role. The Senate is the place where we review legislation, where we give it proper attention, where we find out if it's going to work, where we find out if it needs amendments and where we find out if it's actually going to do what the government says it's going to do. And, shock, horror; it wouldn't be the first time if we found that processes aren't going to work. We've found that many times in committee. Governments don't always take on board amendments, but very often they do.</p><p>What you're trying to do is ram this through. What are you scared of? What's in there that you don't want the community and this place to scrutinise properly? This is an abuse of the process. It should not be exempt from the cut-off order. It should go through the proper process in this particular House of our parliament. We are opposing this. It is an abuse of process.</p> <p class="speaker">Mathias Cormann</p><p>I will make an extremely brief contribution to this debate on this motion. I've got to strongly object to the contribution of Senator Siewert. Any proposition that this is being rammed through this parliament is false. This bill was first introduced into the House of Representatives on 28 November 2018. It had its second reading in this Senate on 2 April, and subsequently we had an election.</p> <p class="speaker">Honourable Senator</p><p>An honourable senator interjecting—</p> <p class="speaker">Mathias Cormann</p><p>Indeed, we had an election, and this was of course part of our platform—endorsed by the Australian people at the election. So there has been expansive scrutiny by the community in relation to this proposal to establish the Future Drought Fund, so that we can provide increased support for drought affected regional communities and farmers around Australia. This is something that has now been debated for eight or nine months. It has been through the processes of parliament for months, and it is now time to get on with it.</p> <p class="speaker">Cory Bernardi</p><p>The question is that the motion moved by Senator Ruston be agreed to.</p>
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