Garth Hamilton (Groom, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

These are eminently sensible suggestions. It would impress even the member for Deakin how sensible these measures are. We have the opportunity to use the proven systems of this parliament to provide scrutiny to a bill that—let's be honest—has really struggled to find support in the media. Even that bastion of right-wing thought the ABC is happy to report on the 'vague and difficult to interpret' guidelines that make it very difficult to understand how this bill would be implemented. They report Australian Industry Group's chief executive, Innes Willox, questioning the community benefit principles that sit within this legislation and commenting that they may reduce policy certainty and increase investment risk: 'This runs'—a somewhat obvious statement here—'counter to the objective of increasing investment in targeted sectors.' Gee, that doesn't sound good. That's not a ringing endorsement. The media has not been behind this. And that's the ABC. I'm starting with the ABC. I could go to the Guardian if I felt like jumping too far to the left. The Sydney Morning Herald goes down much the same lines; Shane Wright refuses to give this legislation a green pass. No-one's happy about where this is going. It has not received support. For all of those reasons put together, this suite of bills deserves scrutiny. It deserves to be sent through to the economics committee.

On a final point, I'm old enough to remember the last election—maybe the member for Fairfax and the member for Deakin are as well—and there was a really important word ringing through the campaign, and that was 'integrity'. When you gag debate in consideration in detail, you are lacking in integrity as a government. This government is running at an integrity deficit. In good faith, we are offering an opportunity to recover that. Show the Australian people that you're not afraid of scrutiny. This is a bill that the minister himself describes as 'the biggest transformation since the industrial revolution'. That's from the minister's own press release. That sounds like something we should be having a good, hard look at. That sounds like something that does deserve an extra set of eyes going across it. Who better than the economics committee to do that?

In closing, I'm very happy to support this motion. It is very sensible. In choosing not to support this, the government would be walking away from scrutiny, going further and further into that integrity deficit. We are trying our hardest to offer the government a way out. I hope they take it.

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