Page 4798 - Week 13 - Thursday, 28 November 2019
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There is an expectation that opposition and crossbench members as well as important stakeholders could digest this government response in four hours and respond to it in the form of complex debate this afternoon. I for one think that that is absolutely ludicrous. This is not good governance. This is not the way that a good parliament is supposed to operate.
If no-one was going to give anything more than a cursory glance to the committee report, if it was just a ticking-of-the-box exercise, if we had less than five hours to read the government response, what was the point of even going through the process?
I remind members that this is a unicameral parliament and, as such, the committee system is supposed to provide the cross-check mechanism that the upper house provides in most other parliaments in this country. This makes an absolute mockery of the committee process and the concept of good governance. If this is the way that the government is going to operate I do not even know why we bother to turn up in the chamber.
As to the government response, some of which pertains to some exceptionally complex legal argument, recommendation 2 from the committee is that the Minister for Building Quality Improvement provide additional information to the Assembly on the interaction between the bill and commonwealth legislative instruments referred to by submitters, including the personal liability for corporate fault reform. It goes on, but that is recommendation 2.
I do not hold a law degree. In the four or five hours since we have had that response we have sought advice and others have sought advice. We do not believe that the government’s response to recommendation 2 stacks up. This government has always had some difficulty understanding the implications of section 109 of the constitution. There are three ways in which a law can fall foul of this provision, and yet the government has addressed only one of them in their response to the committee recommendations. But given the way things work here I am sure we will just say, “No, that’s a tick. That’s been responded to. You’ve got the numbers and so we’ll just blast away.”
The minister has outlined why the government is of the opinion that the commonwealth corporations law does not cover the field. There is still a risk. Indeed, even in the small sample of the commonwealth law that the minister has shared, there is still an acknowledgement that there could be inconsistencies from states or territories. This continues to be a concern for the Canberra Liberals and it continues to be a concern for many in the community.
I reiterate that when you rush through things in this place you end up with mistakes. It is not good enough that a bill that was tabled in late October had to undergo such a rushed committee inquiry in which we were unable to have hearings due to the short time frames. The minister seeks to convince us all that there has been adequate and unquestionable research to the compatibility of these changes with the Commonwealth Corporations Act, which is pretty complex stuff, and he cannot be bothered to even attend the debate because he is having dinner in Adelaide.
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