Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

That is true. I agree with the member for Wakefield: that is why there are trials and that is how the justice system works, of course. But I am sure he will agree with me that even the accusation, the scent of it, still sticks whether you are found guilty or not guilty. That is where I am just simply raising concerns.

I do not think in our country that we should be discouraging good people from getting into high positions in business. As much as we rail against excesses and so forth, we should be encouraging young Australians to pursue business opportunities and to be entrepreneurial. We need to be careful. Members can scoff, but we, as policy makers, do need to be careful that we do not create a situation where we are putting good people off because the threat of criminal litigation is so much greater than that of civil litigation.

On that note, I will sum up. I will not hold the House up much longer. I am interested in the member for Wakefield’s contribution, as always—both on this bill and on these days when we are not into partisan attacks. I will refrain from any sort of partisan attack today. We support the bill, as we have previously indicated. However, I just add a note of caution about the level of power or the size of the stick that we give to government in pursuing small business people and large business people in this country.

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