Today, the parliamentary inquiry into Labor’s carbon tax legislation met for the first time.
The desire of the Labor-Green-Independent alliance to avoid scrutiny and exert total control over this process was evident.
Using their majority, they scrapped parliamentary convention for a Government-nominated Chair to be offset by an Opposition-nominated Deputy Chair.
Having elected Labor MP Anna Burke to chair the inquiry, the Labor-Green-Independent members voted 8 to 5 to install Greens Senator Christine Milne as Deputy Chair.
Given Senator Milne was a key architect of Labor’s carbon tax, her appointment makes a mockery of any claims this inquiry is undertaking an honest assessment of the 19 carbon tax bills.
Meanwhile, the timeline for the committee’s detailed consideration of these 19 bills of more than 1,100 pages more closely resembles a shotgun wedding than a detailed and thorough inquiry into sweeping reforms that will impact on every Australian.
Already, this inquiry is descending into farce at every turn.
The committee was advised that there was not enough time to hold hearings in all states. Most Australians will miss out on the chance to be heard, with those outside of the eastern states or in regional Australia having to resort to phone or video conferencing at best.
Australians will have less than a week to make submissions on this enormous change to our country that Julia Gillard explicitly promised to never introduce.
Labor is already denying Australians a vote on whether or not to have a carbon tax, now Julia Gillard is in such a hurry to make Australians pay her carbon tax that she is effectively denying them a say on it too.
Labor’s contempt and farce know no bounds.