Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I think we're making some progress. I think the minister is almost talking herself into supporting this amendment. The minister has just given the House two quite important revelations. The first is that she has made very clear that the government rejected some portion of the recommendation on unfettered access to this scheme for everybody who had offended in the category that still requires a special assessment process—namely, those who have been sentenced to five years or more for unlawful killing, sexual offences or terrorism. The government rejected that recommendation. That is a stunning admission from the minister. So on one hand the government has rejected that recommendation. Yet it wants to change the scheme to include offences that presumably the minister does not consider serious enough to require the special assessment process.

There would almost be more credibility to the argument if the minister had said: 'We accepted all the recommendations holus-bolus. The second-year review made this recommendation and we accepted it out of hand.' But no. She's saying, 'We rejected a portion of that recommendation,' and is now arguing that the litany of offences I referred to are somehow not serious enough to require a special assessment process. So she doesn't object to a special assessment process per se. We're now getting down to quibbling over which offences should be subject to the special assessment process. The minister says, 'The only crimes that should be subject to the special assessment process are the most serious crimes.' The minister has now put on the record that they will not support this amendment. Therefore, she must not consider these as serious crimes: extortion, distributing child abuse material, possessing child abuse material, accessing child abuse material, kidnapping, robbery, armed robbery, burglary, aggravated burglary, home invasion, aggravated home invasion, carjacking, aggravated carjacking, arson—not serious crimes. These are not serious crimes according to this Labor government. We don't object to having a special assessment process for serious crimes, yet, let's just say that you're in jail serving more than five years for distributing child abuse material, the most disgusting crime you could imagine, the exploitation of children. Guess what? You now get access to the scheme according to these changes without any special assessment process, delivered to you by this minister. And the minister has the gall to say that she's disappointed in me. I'm disappointed in you! How on earth could anybody allow this to come across their desk without scrubbing it out and saying, 'Send it back to where it came from'?

The most serious crimes, according to the minister, are subject to a special assessment process. We agree. The most serious crimes should be subject to a special assessment process, as they are under the current law. You are making a positive change to provide simpler and easier access for people who have been jailed for more than five years for extortion, distributing child abuse material, possession child abuse material, accessing child abuse material, kidnapping, robbery, armed robbery, burglary, aggravated burglary, home invasion, aggravated home invasion, carjacking, aggravated carjacking, arson.

Support the amendment. It's a sensible amendment that Australians would nod their heads in agreement with. End this madness right now, Minister.

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