I wouldn't go so far as to say I have “grave concerns” about this amendment, but as I've already indicated, I'm not a fan of the recommendation to begin with. Mainly I'm not a fan of the recommendation because I still strongly feel that it's outside the scope of our report. When you are looking at future situations, it should not be done in the context of dealing with the current situation.
I won't belabour that. I won't reiterate all of it any more than to say that.
The amendment is a very dangerous place to be going. I can understand and appreciate from Mr. Turnbull's perspective why he might not share those concerns, but I will just lay it out. The way it works, right now, we are in a minority Parliament. I've had the benefit, if you want to call it that, of having served in all four different ways you can serve in Parliament. I've served in a government minority. I've served in a government that was a majority. I've served in an opposition that was opposed to a majority, and I'm now serving in a minority Parliament as an opposition member. Therefore, I've seen all the different ways that a parliament can function.
One can understand in a minority Parliament, which is obviously the only experience Mr. Turnbull has had, why potentially there isn't as much concern about the type of motion he just made in terms of this amendment, but I've served on both sides of a majority, and a majority that was certainly accused by members of Mr. Turnbull's party and others, and I know if he spoke to some of his members who served during that time period, they would probably say they would have been horrified to imagine the government having the power to do this.
I had the benefit or the experience of serving in opposition to the current Prime Minister and saw a number of things that I was quite concerned about in terms of the behaviours of the Prime Minister looking to gain extra powers for himself to avoid accountability. For that reason, I would be horrified to imagine his having the powers of a majority vote, if he had a majority government once again, to invoke something such as this. We should all consider, wherever we sit right now, whether we are government or opposition, or what type of experience we've had as members of Parliament, that this type of thing can be incredibly dangerous.
I don't want to risk seeming like a conspiracy theorist in any way, but these kinds of things, these kinds of powers to declare these kinds of situations without having to have other parties in agreement, are what lead to democracies being eroded to the point where they are no longer democracies. I won't get into grand examples of that happening in the past, but certainly there are examples. We should all be incredibly cautious and incredibly reluctant to go down this very dangerous road.
I expressed my opposition to the initial recommendation that was being made here on the fly. However, should the majority of the committee want to go there, that's obviously what we will do. This one is so incredibly dangerous that, let's put it this way, I would be prepared to speak in opposition to this for as long as I have to, to convince others that this is a very dangerous road, if that's what is required. It is incredibly dangerous.
On the main recommendation itself without this amendment, I am still opposed because I think it's a mistake. However, I would not feel the need to go down that path in order to prevent it.
It is so important that we protect our democracy that I would be prepared to go to any length to prevent this from happening.