Mr ROCHER (4:55 PM) —Earlier in this debate on item 3, the honourable member for Hotham (Mr Crean) mentioned amongst other things its implications for retrospectivity. A reading of the Trade Practices Amendment (Country of Origin Representations) Bill 1998 before us shows that schedule 2, item 3 reads:

3 Subsection 87(1B)

After "Part", insert "IV,".

It is a companion piece to item 5 in the schedule, which reads:

5 Application

Subsection 87(1B) of the Trade Practices Act 1974 as amended by item 3 applies to conduct in contravention of a provision of Part IV whether engaged in before or after the commencement of that item.

So they are very much interwoven. For that reason, I foreshadow that when item 5 comes up for discussion I will move an amendment which has been circulated in my name. As the member for Hotham said in his speech on item 3, the item we are now considering, he had great objection to retrospectivity as it appears in these two provisions combined.

I, along with the coalition before it assumed government apparently, have a committed objection to retrospectivity which imposes a burden on any part of the community. I have maintained that position over the years sometimes to the detriment of my career. Unfortunately, it has involved crossing the floor occasionally, and leaders of political parties do not like that. As I say, I do not think it has helped my advancement through the ranks on different occasions.

Mr Martin —I don't know; you're still here.

Mr ROCHER —I am still here but humble, as always. I am conscientiously opposed to retrospectivity in all its forms where it imposes a burden on a section of the community—whether it be taxpayers, consumers or potential litigants—as is anticipated by the inclusion of the words in part IV under schedule 2, item 3 of this bill.

I would enjoin the government to abandon those words which make retrospective application of these conditions inevitable. I know that, in part, the defence of the Minister for Customs and Consumer Affairs (Mr Truss) will be that that has always applied. I heard him say that, I think, when he was summing up on the second reading debate but certainly earlier in this debate. It is no defence that, because some retrospective provision was included in the bill, it should remain there. It may very well be that it is included in the bill because of some action of its predecessor, perhaps one of the Labor administrations. I am sure we would have objected to that at the time, had we detected it in opposition. I say `we' because I was then a member of the coalition in opposition. It is not an acceptable defence, in my opinion, to reject the amendment that I now foreshadow and which has been circulated in my name.

Let me say this too before I sit down: it is an outrage that one speaker on either side has been contrived by the Chief Opposition Whip, the member for Watson (Mr Leo McLeay), and the Chief Government Whip, the member for Wakefield (Mr Andrew) to speak on what is a very important piece of consumer legislation. I am outraged once again because I have prepared some very significant words which I believe would have contributed to the debate and which would have been—to the extent they contained criticisms—constructive.

It is a matter of great offence to me that governments contrive to force their legislation through the House of Representatives, and in particular when they do so in the knowledge it is going to be held up in the Senate anyway for one of the very reasons that I now advance in the aforementioned amendment, which is that it has retrospective application which imposes a quite unacceptable burden on a section or sections of our community. If we continue to let the Senate do our work, we will become increasingly irrelevant. And that is to the advantage of executive government and not to this House or to this parliament.