Senator BROWN (12:36 PM) —What a mess the minister has got himself into yet again. He says that he did not consider that this was an urgent piece of legislation before the election. He did not get it the priority before the election that he now says it has. He failed to get it in amongst the jostling for bills before the election, but suddenly it is the end of the year and he says that it is important. He goes back as far as 1992 to put his case.

He is an inconsistent, vacillating minister who cannot make up his mind. He indicated to the Senate just a few weeks ago that this bill would be coming on next year—at least his office did—and suddenly he thinks it is urgent. I suppose somebody has given him a kick in the rump somewhere along the line and said, `Hey, we want this through. It is a piece of environmental legislation and we want it to get up.'

The problem for the minister is that it is an ancillary piece of legislation, if you like, to his general push to divest himself, this government and the Commonwealth of their national environmental responsibilities. It is generally part of the push to move to the lowest common denominator as far as the environment is concerned, to say that the only things that this government is interested in are those things where it can achieve agreement with all the states and territories.

We ought to be taking the other tack. The real debate here, which is not going to be entertained in this process, is how the government is going to implement its powers under the constitution to protect the environment of this nation. Pushing through under these circumstances this sort of change to the rules to allow this piece of legislation to get through under the covers before Christmas is not something I am going to entertain as well. The minister has made a hash of his program. He has not been able to get it in order. What was not urgent a month or so ago is suddenly very urgent now. He is totally inconsistent. He does not know what he is doing. It is because he does not have a shred of reputation as far as the environment is concerned. Coming in here this morning and saying suddenly that this is urgent, that he wants the rules of the Senate to be changed and that on this occasion he sees it only as a technicality is not good enough. The minister has got to do better than that, and I will be joining Senator Margetts in voting against this.