SIMON BIRMINGHAM: Five things we need to change now to stop the circus taking over at Parliament

The last sitting week for 2024 of the Australian Senate was quite the show, much of which was for the wrong reasons.

Senators literally threw things at one another. A senator was suspended for the first time in six years. New records were set for government bills being rammed through until guillotine. And some bloke called Simon Birmingham announced that he was resigning.

I might come back to the last of those things another day. But as I reflect on nearly 18 years in the Senate, and prepare to exit, it seems a timely opportunity to think about how this important institution can be strengthened.

To start with, it’s critical to underscore the importance of the Senate. Alongside an independent judiciary, the Senate is the most important check on the executive power of the Prime Minister and their ministers. Without an effective and credible upper house, governments can engage in overreach that benefits no one.

Senate controversy isn’t new. Just ask Gough Whitlam about the dismissal, or Paul Keating about his reflection on the Senate as unrepresentative swill.

But current controversies are somewhat different. The attention seeking abuse of the platform provided by being a senator is testing public credibility. While the increasing disregard of government for Senate processes is testing the Senate’s effectiveness.

There is unlikely to be a silver bullet to overcome such challenges, but as I reflect on the last two weeks, and the last 18 years, there are some parting suggestions that I leave my Senate colleagues.

First, to embed within standing orders a minimum time allowance for the consideration of a bill in committee stage before a guillotine can be applied. For the scrutiny of legislation too much time is wasted on grand speeches, not enough on detailed consideration.

A mere 60 minutes for more detailed questioning of the consequences and operation of a new law isn’t too much to ask for. It would force governments, and all senators, to think about how the time is scheduled to make this happen. And it would be entirely consistent with the Senate’s proper role as a House of review.

Second, the parliament should agree to have House of Representatives ministers appear alongside their portfolio agencies at Senate estimates. This should be accompanied by a tightening of the rules around questioning, to ensure they are genuinely relevant to the expenditure of government funds and the implementation of government policies.

The Senate is an institution that we need to put more effort into upholding, enhancing and protecting.

Ministers like Penny Wong in the current government, or me in the previous one, spend countless hours subject to scrutiny and probing in our own portfolios, but also in those of the House ministers we represent. It remains one of the most effective accountability tools across government, especially for public servants. But why should most ministers dodge this scrutiny just because they aren’t senators?

Third, the Senate should be the home to the greatest level of government transparency. The Senate has the power to order the government to release certain documents, yet too often the response of governments is weaker than if a Freedom of Information application had been pursued.

Political involvement in the decision of whether or not to release information should be removed. While requests should be sufficiently specific so as to not waste time, the default should be for information to be released, while public service accountability should be applied to any decisions to withhold documents.

The fourth issue, of bad behaviour, is tricky. Attention seeking is a genuine part of raising awareness of issues in political debate. But we must draw lines around such tactics, and incentivise people to use the power of their arguments, not the outrageousness of their performance.

This won’t be popular with the media, but it may be time to revisit the extent of freedoms around Senate photos and footage. In many cases, bad behaviour is entirely performative for the cameras.

The Senate President arguably needs more nimble powers to immediately suspend senators, such as the sin bin rule applied in the House of Representatives, plus greater consequences from more serious misconduct in the Senate, including salary suspensions to match chamber suspensions.

Finally, we need to encourage the Senate to be better used as a vehicle for developing unifying policy solutions to the big challenges of our time. At their best, Senate committee and inquiry processes have done so and sometimes still do.

A creative idea put to me by some, is for Senate inquiries to be empowered to make use of citizens juries models to explore difficult areas of policy trade-offs, such as the limits that should apply to support for disability services or industry subsidies.

This idea challenges some of the tenets of our model of representative democracy, but I can see merit in testing it, to see whether bipartisan and community consensus can be more frequently reached on politically sensitive topics.

Some will shout hypocrisy at the above ideas. Yes, as a minister I guillotined debate on bills and withheld documents. Others will query why now, as I exit stage left? Those criticisms are fair enough, although sometimes it is only as you look back at something that you can truly assess its strengths and weaknesses.

Regardless, the institution of our Senate is much more important than whatever people think about me. And right now it’s an institution that we need to put more effort into upholding, enhancing and protecting.