Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

This parliament needs to be given time to look at the detail of this very technical bill—just with the process that this government has taken with the bill to date, as the Manager of Opposition Business said. This government said it would be very transparent, but what its modus operandi has been—and it's been the case with this bill as well—is to gag everyone who's been part of the consultation with legally binding non-disclosure agreements. What that means is that we get this bill, but nothing about this bill has come into the public discussion before the bill got here—which is normal!—because everyone has signed a non-disclosure agreement. While Minister Burke can speak freely about it—and the government spoke about these things when it was doing the consultation process—anyone who's been opposed to this or been consulted haven't been able to speak about it. That's why this parliament needs more time to consider this, because it's disrespectful to the chamber and to the Australian people.

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