Senator COOK (9:47 PM) —Today is quite a significant day in the history of the Senate. Today the report of the Senate Select Committee on a New Tax System, the Senate committee examining the GST, was tabled. As well today, the speeches in the second reading debate were commenced on what promises to be a long and absorbing journey by the Senate in Mr Howard's new tax adventure on the GST. Today we kicked off the tax debate properly in the Senate.

There is no doubt that Australians have been waiting for this occasion, and there is no doubt that it is met with great anticipation. There is no doubt there is an onerous and difficult responsibility on the Senate to discharge its obligations under the Constitution and to the Australian community to do the right thing. What constitutes the right thing in this debate is a matter of very deep division between the parties, and there are very strong views held about it in the Australian community. But this chamber of this parliament in this capital of this nation has the responsibility to determine as a house of review whether or not the bills presented to it by the government should pass. Today, as I said, we started that process.

The tabling of the Senate select committee's report was, I thought, a significant occasion. In my remarks on the tabling of that report, as chairman of the Senate committee, I did what I believed was the right and appropriate thing and congratulated all of those who had played such a constructive role in the preparation of this 500-page report which constitutes the findings of a committee that sat for over four months on 23 different occasions and took evidence in every capital city and in regional Australia.

During the debate on the tabling of the report, my deputy chairman, Senator Alan Ferguson, also spoke. One would have thought he would have directed his remarks in the main, if not exclusively, to the reasons he and his colleague government senators in the inquiry found as they did. I was surprised, I might say, to hear some of the detail of his remarks. It is with great reluctance and a great deal of concern that I now rise to simply correct the record for what I think has been on this day of great significance for the Senate an unfortunate marring of the record by the performance of my colleague. I trust that, on reflection and with greater opportunity to consider what was said, he might want to at some stage moderate or at least retract some of those remarks.

On the occasion of the tabling of the report—and I have a copy of the Hansard now—Senator Ferguson criticised Labor staff and, in reference to me, my staff for intervening in the process of writing the committee report, and he chose to make most of his remarks about staff involvement in that process. Can I just say this for the record: my staff and the staff who have worked for me on secondment from other shadow ministers in servicing my needs as the Labor chairman of the select committee worked under guidance and direction from me, and I am responsible. If there are any criticisms of what staff said or did, then that criticism should not be directed at people who cannot come into this chamber and defend themselves; it should be directed at me. If there is something that is believed to have been inappropriate or something that is believed to have been misconduct, then I should be criticised for that. If it is right and just that the remarks that are being made are fair and proper, I will, let it be said, accept that criticism and, if I need to, I will apologise; if I do not need to, I will rebut it. On this occasion I feel no need to apologise.

I now go to the substantive criticism. As one would imagine, with the preparation of our final report, after four months of sitting on a most comprehensive reference, we were rushing, under pressure, to conclude the document but wanting to do it in a way that, importantly, reflected not a party political slant on the evidence but, in a balanced way, a fair and honest review of the evidence put before the committee.

This was an inquiry into government legislation and a government proposal. As I said more than once to my colleagues on this committee, on occasions such as this criticism engendered in the hearing process inevitably is of the government proposal and overwhelmingly reflects criticism of the government, and when we write a review of that evidence, and do so impartially, the balance of the report should reflect the body of the evidence, and the balance of the report will be critical of the government. That is a function of our democracy, a function of our society and it is inevitable.

If the balance of this report properly reflects the evidence before it, it should set out the detail of where the government was supported, where it was criticised, where the opposition was supported, where it was criticised and where the Democrats were in a similar situation—and anyone else, for that matter. But the overwhelming cast would not necessarily be one where all those who the government thought ought to support it came forward and had their views recorded. So, in the first place, government senators would get restive if this report properly reflected the evidence which was overwhelmingly critical of the government. This report reflects the evidence, and that was our responsibility.

However, the second part of it is the intervention in the final preparation process of the report. I would say this about those concerns expressed: yes, I did support changes in the final hours and past the original deadline that I, along with the rest of the committee, had set for conclusions. But why did I do that? I did it—in case anyone wants to know, even though no-one has actually asked—because I believed it to be very important that this report be a fair one.

The key issue—in fact, I think the key issue of the entire inquiry—arose in the last few minutes of our hearing, 11 days ago, in this building. On that day, that Thursday, two professors of economics, Professor Ann Harding and Professor Warren, presented to the Senate committee modelling work that had been commissioned by this inquiry. They are celebrated, recognised and distinguished professors, the most eminent authorities in Australia to do this work.

Professor Harding and Professor Warren presented a body of research in documentary form. They appeared before the committee for a day's examination, running from early in the morning until quite late in the afternoon. Their evidence taken as a whole was their written work and their oral testimony given before the committee. After the Department of the Treasury had given evidence, I invited Professor Harding and Professor Warren back to the witness stand in order to comment on and respond to the criticisms made of them and their report by officers of the Treasury, and they did. That was the process.

But what was the issue? It is the issue that is important here. This is what the report now reflects—and, if I had not intervened, it would not now reflect this.

Senator Ferguson —You had five days to do it.

Senator COOK —I will take that interjection because all it says is that I was late in doing what I did. If I was late in doing it, it was because I was late in discovering the error. And what do I do in those circumstances: allow a flawed document to proceed, or exercise right and proper judgment to correct the balance and allow a properly balanced document to proceed? That issue is important here.

In the last few minutes of this four-month hearing, and in the last few minutes of the testimony of Professor Harding and Professor Warren, it became clear—and it was corroborated by economic authority—that the so-called compensation awarded by the govern ment to pensioners in Australia would erode rapidly over time to zero; that these pensioners would have to pay a 10 per cent GST on costs, but what was awarded to them to compensate for doing so would vanish. This is a class of Australians who are the most unprotected Australians of all. (Time expired)