Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Minister, the reason we have consideration in detail of a bill is to see how, precisely, the legislation is going to operate. There is no provision in the bill for consultation with anyone. The decision is to be yours and the Prime Minister’s. Indeed, under the ordinance of 1928 there is a group of people who make a decision about the ACT and a national memorial. This is a different category and a different way that a decision is made as to whether a memorial will be a military memorial of national significance or not. So it is not good enough to say that there is some analogy with using the term ‘Anzac’ in relation to a cookie. I am afraid that we are dealing with a specific piece of legislation here. In that instance you are not. So there is a difference.

That is precisely why I said that a better route may well have been to have declared the Australian Ex-Prisoners of War Memorial in Ballarat a specific military memorial of national significance, given it ongoing funding and given it very specific status so it would be certain and not subject at any time to a revocation clause. That would have been my preferred way to proceed. Should there have been other memorials of similar importance, those could have been considered by the government as a matter of policy and further legislation introduced to make those memorials similar memorials of national significance. But in introducing a bill such as this and to simply say about the Ballarat memorial that it does not have to apply—in other words, that it, and it alone, is automatically said to meet the criteria, which is the way you have chosen to proceed—there is nothing to save the Ballarat memorial from the revocation clause. So, although you say that you are going to consult, there is no provision to consult—the decision is yours—and that is precisely why I asked you whether it is your intention to bring forward regulations and what is the timetable for those regulations if that is your intent.

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