Senator ROBERT RAY (3:18 PM) —I found Senator Hill's answer a just a tad disappointing today because it lacked any real depth. I would have thought that, having floated the idea of amending section 57 of the Constitution—one of the more dramatic proposals ever floated before this parliament and one that I have great sympathy with—that would have been able to be fleshed out just a little more. The key issue here is Senate power. Every time I raise this matter with Liberal senators I get back a blank stare—they cannot believe that I would ever raise such an outrageous subject. Suddenly, here they are, signed up to it—terrific!

You do not take much pleasure in being so prescient, because previously they had all gone on about how you elect senators, how you could rort it and how you could get a government majority—that is, when they are in government they argue that. When they are in opposition they argue the following: it is `one of the most democratically elected chambers in the world—a body which at present more faithfully represents the popular will of the total Australian people at the last election than does the House of Representatives'. That is what John Howard had to say in 1987. He changes his view 180 degrees according to whether he is in opposition or in government. We on this side of the chamber have to be consistent and say that we will contemplate a change to the powers of this chamber.

A lot is said about Senate obstructionism. The previous speaker talked about a mandate. Who determines a mandate? This is the problem. To the previous speaker I say: do you have an independent body say, `You went to the Australian people on this and we can say there was a mandate'? There was no mention of the pharmaceutical proposal at the last election. Does the Senate have the right to reject that piece of legislation because you did not mention it at the last election, or are you going to mention in fine print a thousand things, not emphasise them and then claim a mandate? It is a very, very flawed concept.

What we have here is the classic confrontation between Senate powers: the ability of the Senate to exercise powers that could be obstructionist, as opposed to its main evolving role as the chamber of scrutiny of executive government. That is what we have become. Forget about us being a states house—forget all those things in the past. This is where the Senate has evolved to in the last three decades: to be the main weapon to scrutinise government. It is not the only one, but through estimates committees, through references committees, through legislative committees, through returns to order—through all the tools available to this chamber—we are the ones who keep the executive government honest. It would be a tragedy if an unscrupulous government fiddled with the Constitution—I know that it is not the intention but it would be a tragedy—and eliminated the tools of scrutiny that are available to the Senate. At the moment executive government is somewhat kept in check by the media, FOI legislation, the Auditor-General, various inspectors-general in various departments and the Ombudsman Act. All those various tools are there to make sure that, in the adversarial nature of our politics, honesty and integrity exist in the administration of government in this country.

The problem is that the government has not properly defined how far it will take these joint sittings. That is why I am seriously suggesting that the government look at budget related bills. I do not just say `supply bills'. I am not just talking about supply; I am talking about mainstream bills that would finance a government. If we want to use some examples, yes, the government bill that privatised Telstra would be a budget related bill. The government's ASIO bill would not be a budget related bill and it would not be subject to this measure. That I think would mean you would have a better chance of having it carried out there in the public.

We are in a position in this country in which constitutional change can only occur when a Liberal-National Party government suggests it. The reason is that, if ever a Labor government suggests any constitutional change, our conservative opponents oppose it for the sake of opposing it. They do not look at it on its merits. They use it as a chance to sabotage a Labor government's agenda and, in fact, be oppositionists. That is a bit of a tragedy, and I think they should rethink that. Nevertheless, we are not going to adopt that as a standard. Obviously the Prime Minister is serious about making a major constitutional change in this country. We have not ruled it out. We may well embrace it, provided the relevant protections exist to make this a meaningful chamber of scrutiny, without ever letting it lapse into some sort of obstructionist, anarchist outfit, which on occasions through history it has become. (Time expired)