I want to quickly make a point in response to a point that was made. A point was made that somehow, in the future, we could relegislate or relitigate if there are issues and errors. That is theoretically true, of course. That can be done. But in practice it’s not going to deal with the problem that this amendment highlights. We in this place all know that to get a bill through both houses of parliament the bill, effectively, has to be a government bill. It’s almost an impossibility for a private senator or even a group of senators or a group in the other place to start a private bill and have it proceed through both houses, be signed by the Governor-General and become law. That doesn’t happen. It doesn’t happen because the government control the numbers in the House, almost invariably, and, of course, they largely control the time and procedure here in this place.
The problem that this amendment seeks to deal is the fact that, by passing an unamended bill, in 10-plus years time we will be giving the government an almost untrammelled ability, with very little scrutiny, to make the regulations as they see fit. The alternative is to say, ‘Oh well, there could be some legislation that deals with that.’ That legislation would have to come from the government to pass through. So in both cases, through either regulation or legislation, it is controlled by the government. That’s the way this parliament works, in practice.
So I repeat my points here. We have had extensive discussions about the unfortunate trend of more and more delegated legislation being housed in the executive and less and less scrutiny occurring from this place. We have an opportunity here tonight to stand against that trend—to push back against that trend—and I think it’s one we should take.
