Senator ROBERT RAY (6:26 PM) —This debate reminds me of the Sherlock Holmes story about the case of the dog that did not bark: one wonders where master negotiator Alston is at the moment after his brave comments this morning. He was dig ging in. He was saying how intransigent the Democrats were and that they would never give in. It is a long day in politics that does not end. As we see, the government has capitulated—and I think fairly substantially—to the demands of the Democrats.

Comments have been made on how long these negotiations have taken and how complex they were. I wonder why the government did not at some stage look at the original Labor Party proposal for a select committee, on which the Labor Party had only three of the nine members, and probably not the chair. The only thing I think they would have found exceptional was the reporting date, which we indicated a degree of flexibility on. Basically, that was the purist position that any sensible government would want, but this government cannot accept that because the Labor Party put it up.

Why have a select committee? Why not a reference committee or a legislation committee? We are dealing with an issue that has elements of both principle and legislative scrutiny. Neither a legislation committee nor a reference committee could thoroughly do the job. Therefore, a select committee is the obvious alternative. We have select committees to range across a whole range of areas without artificial barriers.

Two weeks ago I might have sat down and thought, `How can we turn the GST into a grand farce? Why don't we have a select committee doing two different references, with massively tight reporting dates, and have three reference committees going at the same time? That sounds like the full Moscow Circus to me.' But we did not come up with these propositions. We did not try to turn this whole thing into a grand farce. I do not know where the proposition came from or what the arguments are for having three references—originally seven. I do not know. It has never been explained to me.

The only explanation I can think of is that there were seven reference committees and there are seven Democrats, so each one of them would have had some input on them. But that would mean that I would have to presume that the internal dynamics of the Democrats were ones of divisiveness driven by personality differences and not ones of people who evacuate strawberry ice-cream every night! That would have to be the explanation.

So I will give the government credit here. If you negotiated them down from seven to three committees, well done. But, for heaven's sake, what is the environment committee doing there?

Senator Brown interjecting—

Senator ROBERT RAY —I see. Well done, Bob. You got that put in. That was part of your negotiating ploy, no doubt. But basically, in terms of the relevance of the GST, any fair-minded person would probably have ranked that committee fifth or sixth, unless they had a particular interest in the area. So what we are seeing emerge from all this is some sort of gigantic compromise which has very little utilitarian value. As I say, if you could have gone back to the very simple Labor Party proposal—one committee, the Labor Party with only three out of nine members, and comprehensive terms of reference—we could have negotiated the same sort of reporting date of mid-April and you would have had a coherent and sensible report. But, of course, because we put it up, it was dead. Maybe we should have been more subtle. Maybe we should have put up everything but the one select committee, which would have led the government into the killing fields, the killing zone, and they would have automatically accepted it.

So the Labor Party can at least say, `I think we put up a sensible proposal.' This proposal is more sensible than the first one. Having three reference committees going away and working on this rather than seven is more manageable. Having an overarching select committee is as sensible as having the reference committee as the overarching one—I think we can see that.

But let us have a look at the first problem that I perceive—and that is the reporting date. I can only go from experience of Senate committees. If we are lucky, we will set this committee up tonight or, by the latest, tomorrow, which is about 25 November. In the normal course of events we are expecting submissions—if I read this motion correctly— to conclude on 29 January, which gives the committee a grand 19 or 20 days to hear the submissions and write their report.

Senator Lees —That's just the modelling.

Senator ROBERT RAY —That's just the modelling, but it is a very large task.

Senator Ian Campbell —Well, you haven't read it.

Senator ROBERT RAY —Senator Ian Campbell says across the chamber, trying to be helpful, `Well, you haven't read it.' Do you know what, Senator Campbell? When this was first moved, none of us had read it, and we had to wait minutes and minutes. We were then expected to debate it on the run, not having been given a copy. Normally, you think you would have a copy an hour in advance. That certainly did not occur.

Senator Murray —That is unfair. We exposed all the drafts to John Faulkner and Simon Crean.

Senator Faulkner —Andrew, you know that's not true. I have not seen them at all.

Senator ROBERT RAY —Even if that was true, Senator Murray, and even though I am a disciple of Senator Faulkner, I am occasionally able to have independent thoughts and even occasionally slightly different emphasis to Senator Faulkner—heaven forbid, occasionally slightly different emphasis.

Nevertheless, a quick read of this suggests that at least this document has been put together reasonably well. I have not been able to give it a full analysis, but it occurs to me that that first time line will be too short and it will be a pity if the committee then had to come back and ask for more time. Everything else is contingent on it completing its work by 18 February, because then this committee goes on and takes an even bigger terms of reference to get its report in—by 19 April, if I read correctly. At the same time, we are to have three other references committees beavering away on extensive terms of reference. So what the government basically has to do is feed material into the select committee twice and into three references committees. Wouldn't it have been a lot easier just to put it into one select committee?

Senator Faulkner —On one occasion.

Senator ROBERT RAY —On one occasion. Nevertheless, we suggested it. They knocked it back. They got into the internal dynamics of negotiation that they could not get themselves out of and came up with this.

Senator Faulkner —And they have shocking negotiators.

Senator ROBERT RAY —Well, they never have the same ones. Where is Senator Alston? He has disappeared from the scene.

Senator Sherry —He is up in the gallery.

Senator ROBERT RAY —He has been dropped to the twos. I would not mind that if I were Senator Alston, but who do they put up? Senator Kemp is the star negotiator to sell this message.

Senator Faulkner —What about Mr Costello?

Senator ROBERT RAY —That again proves—and I have to make a bipartisan point here, Senator Faulkner—that all Mr Costello has done is follow the grand tradition of Liberal and Labor members of the House of Representatives in making assumptions about the Senate without the slightest understanding of it. My advice to Mr Costello, as it was to other people in the House of Representatives—I never had to give it to Mr Keating because, let's face it, he never would have thought of negotiating with the Senate—is to leave it to the Senate professionals, leave it to their front bench to negotiate these things and then it is likely to proceed much more apace. Even though he has limited ability, Senator Kemp could have moved these negotiations forward a lot more quickly than Mr Costello ever could have done.

I move on to a couple of other points. Looking at the sitting dates, I worry about the procedural matter that we actually set sitting dates as an amendment to a massive amendment to business of the Senate. In other words, you have a motion that you virtually delete. You replace it with another motion and it becomes business of the Senate. Then you amend on that the future sitting weeks. I think that is an extremely poor process—

Senator Carr —It will turn around and bite them.

Senator ROBERT RAY —Well, I do not know about it turning around and biting anyone, but it is a very poor technical process for this chamber to involve itself in. And one wonders really whether it qualifies as business of the Senate without notice being given. Nevertheless, we want a sensible result here so I will take that objection no further. Essentially the government has dropped out a couple of sitting weeks in what we might call the autumn session to allow these committees to work more strenuously and without the impediment of the Senate sitting and it has added those two sitting weeks to April.

There is no longer the traditional five- or six-week break there, so basically the Senate will be sitting through from 15 February to 30 June. One thing I can guarantee all senators is that we are not going to be sitting past 30 June. You can give up any thoughts of that because the new Senate is due in at one minute after midnight that night. In essence the government has borrowed two weeks from the normal break and occupied them with Senate time to allow the committee more time—so basically it will be through here. I do not think they have added to the potential sitting weeks overall. I think this would have been the number of sitting weeks—Senator Campbell can nod—had we started on 1 February and followed a normal pattern and, as such, it cannot be said that the government has added to the program.

The next question that comes up, because we have not been consulted on most of these things, is what happens to estimates committees. Most people would be aware that the supplementary estimates due for August this year were cancelled because of the election. We did not insist that they be brought on again in the spring session because of the tightness of time—basically it would have made it very difficult in this current sitting pattern—nevertheless, we have remaining questions coming out of that, and we obviously have additional questions for the additional estimates process.

I understand there has been no final decision made yet as to when we will do those estimates, but I think the Manager of Government Business has given me an indication of what he thinks is the proper course, and there has been some discussion about one or two necessary spill-over days. I think that can all be resolved to our satisfaction without impacting on any of this. We were of course worried that, in this new series of arrangements, somehow the additional estimates may disappear out of the system. But our concerns in that regard have been assuaged by Senator Campbell's having those matters in hand. I hope Senator Campbell will be able to establish those actual dates in the next week or so before people leave here, so that they will know their timetable for these committees next year.

In summary, we now have a select committee that has to do an enormous amount of work. I do not know how many other select committees are going to be set up in this parliament. At the moment this will be the only select committee we have because each one of them, I understand, ceases to exist after the prorogation of parliament. I think there should be some discussion over the next week or two about how many of the past select committees will be re-established. I think the ideal number of select committees operating at any one time in this chamber is two. Given the fact that we have about 43 committees around the place, prioritising which ones get re-established will not be an easy task—again, I think that should be addressed in the next two weeks. This just makes it a little harder because, obviously, we think this select committee will get up. Once this one gets up we have a situation of whether we can afford to re-establish the other three.

From the funding point of view it is going to get more difficult the more committees we have—coming out of, I think, a fair arrangement made with the Department of Finance about 18 months to two years ago. That is another challenge ahead. We have to resolve that, we have to resolve the estimates timetable and we have to resolve who is going to go on this committee. I warn the Senate that I think it is a very ambitious program, and it is going to be extremely difficult to meet the timetables and scope of the inquiries. I think in some ways having one extremely well-resourced committee would have been better than the scattergun approach of having four committees. Nevertheless, four committees are better than no committee, I suspect, not only from our point of view but also from the government's point of view. It is a pity that they took so long to come to the negotiating table. As Senator Kemp said, you have good days and bad days; I suspect today was a pretty bad day for the government. It basically had to run up the white flag to the Democrats and give them everything they wanted.

Senator Conroy —And Senator Harradine.

Senator ROBERT RAY —In the end this proposal hinges on every senator in the Senate, not just the Democrats—I understand that—but they did most of the negotiating. I want to repeat the point that the next time an amendment of this complexity comes into the Senate, all senators should have a half-hour or an hour to go through the details of it rather than try to do it on the run. We were ably assisted by a rather pathetic explanation by Senator Vanstone that did enable us to read these particular motions.