Menzies House

GOVERNMENT AND GREENS CONTINUE TO EVADE PARLIAMENTARY SCRUTINY

Senator Mitch Fifield notes the Government's latest attempt to shut down debate:

As if the Prime Minister’s refusal to allow the Australian people their say on the carbon tax wasn’t bad enough, Labor and the Greens have again colluded to cut what little parliamentary debate they initially allowed even shorter. The Government proposed at first to allow the Senate just two weeks to consider the far-reaching, consequential legislation. This week we learned, however, that they intended to cut the debate even shorter, allowing only 6 days in total for Senators to consider the debate before bringing down the guillotine. This is effectively a gag on a gag, with the carbon tax likely to be voted on next Tuesday. I published a media release on the matter – you can read it here or below.

Of course, we shouldn’t be surprised by this action – this is a Government that is comfortable with bald-faced lies to the Australian people! They’re hardly going to quibble over their continued evasion of due and proper process in their haste to ram their deeply unpopular carbon tax through the Parliament.

To make matters worse, it would appear that the left-wing campaign organisation GetUp! was advised of the Government’s intention to bring forward the guillotine and gag debate before the Australian Senate. Many of my colleagues were understandably outraged that Bob Brown and his mates were informed of the business of the Senate before Senators themselves!

The Government’s ongoing and flagrant disregard for the important role of parliamentary scrutiny should worry anyone who values government accountability and transparency.

Editor: Here is Senator Fifield's second reading speech on the carbon tax. Well worth a watch:

 

Mitch Fifield is a Senator for Victoria and manager of Opposition business in the Senate.

Remembering September 11

Senator Mitch Fifield reflects upon the September 11 attacks:

Marking the tenth anniversary of the attacks wrought on American civilians by Islamic terrorists is a dark occasion indeed. Yet it also provides an important opportunity to reflect on an event as momentous as it was tragic, whose impact shaped the key global issues of the last decade. 

Australians can be proud that we recognised the attacks of September 11 not only as an attack on America, but as an attack on the Western liberal values that our own country holds dear. Then Prime Minister John Howard knew immediately that those who seek to murder American civilians would just as soon wreak the destruction they caused on September 11 on our own soil if given the chance. The renewed strength and depth of the Australian-American relationship in the wake of September 11 reflected the fact that our shared values and beliefs were under attack.

The vicious method employed by those who inflicted the attacks of September 11 were so barbaric, and their results so horrific, that the event itself often obscures from attention the motivation behind the attack. The objective of those who perpetrated these attacks was not to fly civilian aircraft into American landmarks; these were mere tactics to achieve the ultimate aim of the destruction of Western culture and the values upon which it is built.