Wednesday, 18 March 2020

Standing and sessional orders

Ms ALLAN (Bendigo East—Leader of the House, Minister for Transport Infrastructure) (10:27): I move:

That:

(1) this house notes that as we move to slow the spread of COVID-19 and reduce its impact on elderly and vulnerable Victorians, workplaces across Australia are changing the way they work. Therefore in the current circumstances this house should only be dealing with essential matters of business.

(2) so much of standing and sessional orders be suspended immediately to allow:

(a) the order of business for the remainder of the week to be:

Wednesday 18 March 2020

Question time (11.00 am)

Government business continued

Adjournment (3.00 pm)

Thursday 19 March 2020

Formal business

Government business

Question time (11.00 am)

Government business continued

Adjournment (3.00 pm).

(b) there to be no adjournment debate under standing order 33.

In speaking to the motion I do not intend to take a lot of time on this debate this morning as these were matters that were canvassed quite extensively yesterday during the government business program motion. I am going to be optimistic that we do not need a long debate on this matter today, and that is because we have just seen the Prime Minister give an extensive press conference. People are working around the clock, through the night. At the national level there is strong leadership being shown in a strong bipartisan way, where leaders are coming together across party lines, putting aside differences, and understanding that the time is now to come together and work cooperatively through the challenges that face us but also understand that from time to time modifications are going to need to be made to the way business as usual is done.

We are seeing workplaces around the world being asked by their governments, being asked by their citizens to look at how things need to be done differently to protect the wellbeing of staff, to protect their health and safety, but also to take every measure possible to slow the spread of what is a disease of the type we have not seen in modern times. This is why we do not move lightly a motion of this type. It is why I spent a considerable period of time before Parliament started this week reaching out to members of the opposition, the crossbench and the Greens political party to talk through the government’s thinking as to why this week, given Parliament was always scheduled to sit this week, there is going to be further change coming and we needed to put into place a specific set of arrangements just for this week. That is what we are asking for: let us respond to the situation we have before us now and then also think about what needs to be done for the future.

Again I refer to the Prime Minister’s comments earlier in the week. Federal Parliament appears to have been able to achieve this in a cooperative way. The federal Parliament is both reducing the number of members required to sit in the Parliament and also reducing their sitting time because they want to reduce the potential exposure and potential risk for the staff that work in the building. The Queensland Parliament is also sitting this week. They are taking similar measures and, as I understand it, have been able to do this and achieve it in a bipartisan way. We have a responsibility to the staff who work in this place—the people who go home to their own families, who have their own caring responsibilities—to act responsibly. We have a duty to ourselves. We are all humans—we all go home to families and to potentially caring for elderly parents or a neighbour who may have a disability or may need a bit of a helping hand at this time.

Also, I know, Speaker, that people have approached you and they have approached me. Members on all sides are also concerned. People have been asking me, colleagues have been asking me, about steps that need to be taken this week to limit potential exposure. That is why after deep reflection the government made the decision to change the sitting arrangements for this week—to maintain those important functions of the scrutiny of government through question time. I put this very clearly because I anticipate this will be a matter that we will hear a lot of bluff and bluster about from those opposite. They will say we are trying to avoid the scrutiny of Parliament. That is nonsense, that is rubbish and it is outrageous to use that slur, as the Leader of the Opposition did yesterday in his media comments. We are not reducing the scrutiny of this government. We are not stepping away from that at all. We are simply asking for some cooperation. The motion that is before the house—

Mr D O’Brien interjected.

Ms ALLAN: I would suggest to the member for Gippsland South that if he wants to have any leadership opportunity in this place he just listen for a minute and I will explain to him—

Members interjecting.

Ms ALLAN: If I sound a little cross, it is because I made every effort—and I will not be verballed by those opposite. I made every effort. I spoke at length to the Manager of Opposition Business. I understood what the opposition’s priorities were for this week. I indicated that we were in a position to compromise our original proposition to accommodate the wishes of the opposition. That desire, that approach of bipartisan cooperation, was flatly rejected. I will come to this in a moment. I have been able to address some of the issues that the Greens political party raised with me in my discussions with them. I have been able to talk to the crossbenchers as well. I want to resoundingly reject any claim that has been made this week or is going to be made later today, during this debate, that we are using this international crisis to avoid scrutiny—nothing could be further from the truth.

We are simply asking for some modest modifications to this sitting week to take care of the health and wellbeing of our staff and the health and wellbeing of each other. If we cannot come together on that, I will leave it to the opposition to explain why they will choose to be on the wrong side of history in this debate and why they will choose to walk away from this opportunity that, as the Deputy Premier has said, other parliaments in this country and other parliaments around the world have taken. We are seeing right now a great display of cooperation, with the Prime Minister convening national cabinet—all state and territory leaders, all different political parties, coming together. This is a really critical moment for the opposition to consider where they sit on this.

I want to come to some of the conversations I have had with the crossbench on this motion. One of the issues that has been raised with me, particularly by the member for Melbourne, is how we may be able to accommodate members statements that members would have liked to have made tomorrow and adjournment contributions that members would have liked to have made today and tomorrow. I flag that the member for Essendon will be moving an amendment to this motion that will allow for members statements for tomorrow and adjournment matters for today and tomorrow to be submitted to the Clerk and for them to be incorporated into Hansard. So I am thankful for the cooperation of the Greens and, I should say, the crossbench as well.

I will go to another rebuttal that I know will come from the opposition: that Parliament is exempt. We are in a state of emergency. The Premier declared a state of emergency as of midday on Monday. This is the situation we are in. These are not usual times.

We are in a state of emergency and as such, as part of a range of activities—and the Prime Minister also went to this this morning in his press conference—that are needed to keep our society going, Parliament is exempt. But as I have said, Parliament may be exempt, but we have seen the federal parliament agree to a reduced sitting program—a focus on the stimulus measure, a focus on scrutiny of government but reduced sitting hours. We have seen this happen in the Queensland Parliament as well. I put to the opposition: what makes them so special? What makes them know better than the Prime Minister, the chief medical officers and other leaders internationally? What makes the opposition, what piece of information gives them—

Members interjecting.

Ms ALLAN: What do they have? Maybe in the Manager of Opposition Business’s contribution he is going to reveal an internationally unknown-to-date piece of medical research that we do not know about. Maybe that is what we are going to see in the contribution from the Manager of Opposition Business, because other than that I am genuinely shocked and surprised.

Members interjecting.

Ms ALLAN: I have seen a lot of slings and arrows flung in this place over a long period of time. I will acknowledge absolutely that in this place from time to time I have not been a shrinking violet, but I do know this, that when we have had the crisis of bushfires—

Mr R Smith interjected.

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Warrandyte is warned.

Ms ALLAN: and there were the floods in 2011, that when there was an opportunity previously for bipartisanship, that was able to be achieved. We have not been able to do this today. I am disappointed that we have had to use the numbers of the government to achieve this. As I said, I made every effort to get this motion through in a consultative way—every effort. It is up to the Leader of the Opposition to explain his actions and why he has decided that he knows better than all the chief medical officers that are advising governments and national cabinet.

I just want to finish on this point. The arrangements that we are putting in place are just for this week. We will need to have future discussions on how Parliament will need to sit into the future. The advice is that this issue will run for many, many months. We will need to modify the future operation of this place. I can only hope that we will achieve that in a more cooperative way, in a more intelligent way, in a more thoughtful way than we have been able to today with the Liberal-National coalition. I would only hope that. I give this commitment—

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! Order in the house, please!

Mr R Smith interjected.

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Warrandyte has already been warned.

Ms ALLAN: I give this commitment to all members of this place, that I will do my very best to achieve what the operation of the Parliament looks like in the future in a cooperative and a consultative way. But to do that I am going to need some cooperation and leadership shown in return. It goes both ways. I would hope that after this debate goes through—and I am confident that the opposition will continue to oppose it and they will say a number of outrageous things through the course of this debate—I am prepared to put that aside and work cooperatively with you and the Presiding Officers and the Parliament on what arrangements we need to put in place in the future. But for that to happen, it is going to take some leadership, intelligence and support from those opposite, and I hope that we can achieve that in the future. I commend the motion to the house.

Mr WELLS (Rowville) (10:38): On a point of order, Speaker, listening to the Leader of the House give her speech I heard you give two warnings to the member for Warrandyte. I was sitting right next to him and all he was doing was responding to provocation from the Deputy Premier. I think it is a bit unfair that the member for—

Mr Merlino interjected.

The SPEAKER: Order! I warn the Deputy Premier!

Mr WELLS: Just on the point of order, it seems a bit unfair, because it is obviously not going to be in a bipartisan way. There will obviously be the argy-bargy both ways, so I think it is a bit unfair to point out or to—

The SPEAKER: Order! I do not uphold the point of order. The Manager of Opposition Business on the motion.

Mr WELLS: The Leader of the House says that these are modest adjustments. They are not modest adjustments. These are very, very serious changes to the way that we do business. This motion is clearly about shutting down Parliament. It is about shutting down Parliament. It is about the government running away from scrutiny. There is no other way to describe how this motion is going to be seen by the wider Victorian public.

It is a bit rich, I think, that the government calls for bipartisan support, and then, while the Leader of the House got up and was giving her speech, there were already barbs being thrown both ways across the chamber. It is clearly not going to be a debate in good, bipartisan spirit, and we have seen that. We have also seen the behaviour of many members of Parliament on the government side when they were in opposition when it came to former Speaker Ken Smith.

But I just want to point out a couple of things. It is true that the manager of government business and I have had numerous conversations over the last couple of days, and I would say that they have been held in good faith and they have been held in good humour at times. But the issue is that with the numerous phone calls that we had we got to a stage where the opposition could not support what the government was proposing, because the opposition cannot do their job, cannot undertake their role as an effective opposition—that is, by scrutinising government. If you are not going to have members statements, how can we as a group of members of Parliament raise issues from our electorates to the government? We are being cut out from that. The other issue is that we are not even allowed to raise an adjournment item. The issue is that when it came to grievances for some reason—

Ms Allan interjected.

The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the House!

Mr WELLS: Yes, and for some reason the government was not prepared to budge on grievances in the final deal that was put into this motion. Grievances are not part of this motion—

Ms Allan: On a point of order, Speaker, on relevance, just for the record, I made the offer of grievances being in the final motion. It was rejected by the manager of opposition—

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! The Leader of the House will resume her seat. There is no point of order.

Mr WELLS: I just want to make it clear, because the working relationship I have had with the Leader of the House has been a good working relationship since I took this role over from the former member for Box Hill. It has been good and I think it has been fair, and there has been a fair amount of trust. What I did say is that grievances are not part of this motion. They were discussed along with members statements and the adjournment, but they are not in this motion, and it is for that reason we have no choice but to oppose it.

It is interesting when I go back and look at what was said yesterday when we were talking about the government business program. I said at the time that in times of crisis people expect leadership. They expect our leaders to stand up and be accountable for their actions. We do not want leaders standing up just making all sorts of decisions and making rash promises here, there and everywhere. We need them to be accountable, and that is the role of the opposition on this side: to make sure that all of the decisions that are being made are being made with the full accountability of this Parliament. I would have thought that this week, being the last week before budget day—so that is a six-week break—the government would want to maximise and pack in as much as they possibly could in this particular week to ensure that they are well prepared, that they had all the bills, they had all the legislation ready to go so when they came back for the—

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Order! The member for Wendouree and the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party! Order! The member for Wendouree is warned. The Manager of Opposition Business has the call.

Mr WELLS: So I would have thought, it being the last week before the budget and a six-week break, that you would want to bring in as many pieces of legislation possible that are relevant to the budget to be able to ensure that when you came back on 5 May, that Tuesday—that one day for that whole week—the legislative program would be absolutely packed to make sure that we were going to be safe and secure and that all measures were going to be put in place.

And it is always interesting to note that already we sit so few days—we sit so very rarely in this chamber. And when you look at it, you look at the number of times that we have sat, in 2000 we sat for 51 days; 2001, 51 days; an election year, 38—we get that; 2003, 47 days; 2004, 47; and 2005, 48. But then when you get down to this year, we are going to only sit 46 days—46 days in 2020. And then on top of that what they are trying to do is already reduce one of those weeks—one of those, today and tomorrow—so bring it back to 44 days plus a little bit added on. So by contrast, between 2000 and 2018 the average number of sitting days in a non-election year was around 50 days. So we are going to sit 46 this year. Take out today and tomorrow, we are down to 44 days—adding on a little bit more because of the time we are sitting now and the time that we will sit tomorrow. So it is disappointing that the level of scrutiny is just evaporating in this state.

And by reducing the amount of time—between 7 o’clock and, I think it was, 4 o’clock or 3 o’clock for today and 3 o’clock for tomorrow—I am not sure what the point is, when we are already here and we are already sitting and working. It makes no sense, and I have yet to see any evidence or documents from any health expert to say that there is a difference between sitting until 3 o’clock or 4 o’clock or until 7 o’clock. We are already here and we are already participating, so I am not sure on what evidence that is taking place.

And as I said, we are not sitting again until May. As I said, we did try to work with the government and the Leader of the House, but in the end we had to say no, because we then would have to go back to our constituents in Rowville and everywhere else and argue the point that we have reduced our time even more. And that to us did not make any sense.

The issue about the motion as you look at it now—it is interesting to note that for Wednesday the 18th, today, question time is at 11.00 am, then government business continues and adjournment at 3.00 pm. So it is all about the government business program—the government, what they want—but there is nothing in this about members statements, nothing about grievances for this afternoon and nothing about actually going on to the adjournment debate. Now, the Leader of the House did mention across the table as we were speaking that, ‘Oh, we’re going to change that’—that the member for Essendon is going to move an amendment. Interesting. Has anyone on this side seen the amendment?

Members interjecting.

Mr WELLS: So it is interesting that the government, it appears, has informed the Greens—and that is their right to do—about an amendment, but they forgot to give it to the opposition party so we could have considered the amendment before we started speaking on this.

Because we have not seen the amendment and because the member for Essendon will speak after me, we can only go by what the motion is at this particular point in time, and it says:

Question time …

Government business continued

Adjournment …

It is not good enough for the Leader of the House to lean over and say, ‘Oh well, you’re going to get members statements and adjournments but they will be put on the record and incorporated into Hansard’. You would have thought that the Leader of the House would have moved an amendment and put in a different motion. It should have been done yesterday. I make the point we have not been informed. The Labor members of Parliament can jump up and down all they like; we have not seen it.

Interestingly though, I went to the Victorian Parliament website yesterday because we are concerned on this side about the accountability of government. Our role in Parliament is to keep the executive government honest, on the straight and narrow. We need to make sure that we are representing our constituents. We need to make sure that the executive government is being held to account. So I looked up the definition on the Victorian Parliament website—I am quoting from the Victorian Parliament website—about parliamentary accountability. This is what it says:

The concept of parliamentary accountability is based on the premise that parliament, as the highest representative organ of government, has the duty to check on the activities of the executive through a number of measures. The mechanisms employed to achieve that has in modern literature been referred to as parliamentary accountability. Also tied to this is the institutional accountability of members of parliament, collectively and individually. Thus champions of accountability must first be accountable to themselves. A number of parliaments develop code of ethics for both MPs and staff to help guide them to maintain ethical and accountable behaviour.

When we refer that to the motion, I am not sure what part of parliamentary accountability is factored into this motion because it does not allow the opposition to be able to hold the executive government to account under any circumstance. Yes, we have question time, but what about the ability to hold them to account through grievances? And I am not sure why the government is so afraid of our grievances. What could possibly go wrong? The budget is a shambles. Hospitals—we are not sure where they are going to get the money from for elective surgeries. And we are not sure what is going to happen about schools, but that will have bipartisan support. So we make the point—

Mr T Bull: A critical part of the week.

Mr WELLS: Yes. We make the point that, as we say, there is not even an adjournment to raise crucial issues about our MPs and their hard work in their electorates.

And of course the other issue we have got is that if it does not get raised today or tomorrow, when do we raise it? I mean, we have today and tomorrow and then we have to wait for one day in May—

Ms McLeish: Maybe.

Mr WELLS: Yes, maybe one day in May, and then after that one day in May we have got to wait until 19 May.

Mr T Bull: Maybe.

Mr WELLS: I have been informed by my colleagues ‘maybe’. But 19 May is the next week that we sit. Budget day is Tuesday, 5 May, but we have to wait six weeks before we actually get there. That is hardly representing our electorates with members statements and the adjournment.

The issue also is, as I mentioned, the grievance debate. Again, the grievance debate provides the chance for us to be able to raise issues that we are grieving about—in our case how poorly the government is managing the finances, managing their portfolios. Even on the website:

Grievance debate

Every third …Wednesday at 2.00 pm—

which is 2.00 pm today, of all days—

members debate the question ‘That grievances be noted’. The debate is wide ranging. Members use the debate to raise concerns about individual constituents or other significant issues.

You would have thought that in the crisis that we are in—

A member: And after the fires.

Mr WELLS: Yes, after the fires, the fire recovery, the coronavirus and the budget going into deficit, we would have thought that we would have a number of issues and that the government would say, ‘You are right, we need to be held to account. We need to be able to stand up and to be able to answer and to address these matters as quickly as possible so we can assure the Victorian public that we have got things under control’.

I would also like to address the issue of members statements. Members statements are a matter of concern or interest. We can speak for up to 90 seconds and make a statement on any topic. Adjournment debates—the motion ‘That the house now adjourns’—provide a forum for members to raise matters of concern relating to Victorian government administration. The adjournment debate is about Victorian government administration, so it is absolutely crucial that if we have people in our electorates who believe that they are being hard done by by the government—whether it be with public housing, whether it be roads, whether it be buses not running on time, whether it be schools, whether it be the issue of trains running late or whether it be the trams—those sorts of issues are very important to raise in the adjournment debate.

Mr T Bull: The timber industry.

Mr WELLS: As the member for Gippsland East says, ‘What about the timber industry?’. The member for Gippsland East will not be able to raise any issues about the timber industry between now and May. What is going to happen in the meantime with the uncertainty for all of those loggers and all of those jobs? You would have thought that members would have the legitimate right to be able to raise that. We do not accept the cross-table chat that, ‘Oh no, you don’t need to worry about that, it’s going to be incorporated’. It is a lot different to be able to incorporate something in Hansard rather than being able to get up on your feet and demonstrate what the issue is and be able to actually put that up on your social media, to be able to put that up on Facebook and to be able to send it out. In the case of the member for Gippsland East, thousands of people in Gippsland East are affected by logging and the timber industry. We have got to get that message out. How do you get the message out if you are going to incorporate something in Hansard? And do not forget: we still have not been told that this is what is going to happen. How do you send that message out to people in East Gippsland? You cannot. It is a ridiculous situation, and I do not understand, as I said, that we are unable to get any information about the amendment. Maybe we can go and talk to the Greens and maybe they can give us the amendment and we can be able to talk about that.

What does a member of Parliament do? What do we do as members of Parliament? According to the Victorian website:

Members scrutinise the work of the government—

and as I said, the source for this is the Victorian Parliament—

Members scrutinise the work of the government and government expenditure primarily by asking questions of ministers and debating, and through parliamentary committees. The annual estimates process in the Legislative Assembly, which examines the government’s forthcoming budget and the forward estimates of expenditure, is the primary mechanism by which members scrutinise the government’s annual financial performance.

The member for Gippsland South I know is on the Public Accounts and Estimates Committee and the member for Polwarth is also on public accounts. Don’t you get the feeling that if they can actually shut down parts of Parliament, we then have real concerns about the public accounts and estimates process? I mean, already there has been an excuse that was used to shut down part of the process in the financial and performance outcomes hearings. They were shut down, and it was because of the bushfires. There were going to be, I understand, public hearings in February. That was all shut down until I think June this year. If you are going to shut down Parliament and parts of Parliament and you are going to shut down and put off the public hearings for the financial and performance outcomes inquiry by public accounts, then what is next? Is this not the thin edge of the wedge? Yes, everyone is going to say, ‘Oh there are certain reasons’, but if you can shut down the outcome hearings and you can do that simply because of the so-called bushfires and the public service already being tied up, then it makes it very difficult to be able to continue.

Business interrupted under sessional orders.