Media Release – Government and Greens bring forward guillotine on carbon tax debate – 2 November 2011

GOVERNMENT AND GREENS BRING FORWARD GUILLOTINE ON CARBON TAX DEBATE

The Government has today indicated that they intend to gag debate on the carbon tax two days earlier than the gag they originally proposed. This is a gag on a gag.

The Government have provided no reason for the gag, no reason for the rush, no reason for imposing the guillotine on parliamentary scrutiny.

Last month the Senate agreed to schedule an extra week of sitting to solely debate the carbon tax legislation. The Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Chris Evans, promised that:

“…the Senate will have more than two full weeks to debate the Clean Energy
package of Bills.”[1]

Today we learned that the Government and the Greens intend to bring the guillotine forward to next Tuesday, instead of Thursday of next week.

It is bad enough the Government broke their solemn commitment to not introduce a carbon tax. It is bad enough that the Australian people have been denied the opportunity to have their say on the tax.

The very least the Government should do is to allow proper parliamentary scrutiny.

The Government has already refused to allow Senate committees to scrutinise these bills, which will have far-reaching, economy-wide effects if passed.

Now they are going against their own word and cutting debate short.

Along with the Greens, the Government have continually sought to evade due process and proper scrutiny to ram their carbon tax through the Parliament as quickly as possible.

It’s pretty clear who is really in charge of the Government’s legislative agenda.  The Greens bark and the Government jumps.