Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition will support the amendments, but this is the trouble with the states, is it not? The states can be difficult to work with. All of us think that it would be marvellous to have more cooperation with the states. All of us wish for more cooperation with the states. But the states, as we know, are very good at pledging cooperation and then just going on and doing exactly what suits them. I foresee much prickliness on the part of state governments when the coordinator-general wants to give polite requests to state government agencies and state government officials. I think that the amendments which the government is understandably making here at the request of one of the state governments are, alas, a foretaste of things to come.

In conclusion, the only reason why the Commonwealth government has been able to put the intervention in place is that it is the sovereign level of government in the Northern Territory. The Northern Territory is a subordinate legislature to the Commonwealth. This is not the case in the states, which is why, as much as the former government would have liked to extend the intervention to the remote communities of Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland, we could not. We could only do it in the Territory because in the Territory we call the shots; in the Territory, the Commonwealth is ultimately in charge. We plainly are not, as things stand, in charge in many areas in the states, and this very worthy legislative innovation, the coordinator-general, is going to find it quite difficult, I suspect, to get real action out of state agencies. But, still, it is good legislation; there is much promise in what the government has in mind. Because I do not want to make life needlessly difficult, we are happy to support the amendment.

Question agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

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