Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Transport) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition will be supporting this amendment. We do think it is a modest request but very worthy of our support. We agree that the issues which have been canvassed in this debate are extremely important to the Australian public and, indeed, to the whole of this globe, and we think it is extremely reasonable to ask that the operation of the propositions which the government have embodied in this bill with the amendments that they have proposed ought to be subject to an independent review and that review should not just sit on the desk of the minister when it has been conducted—it should be made public. Therefore, subclause (3) of this amendment, which would require the report of that review to be tabled in each house of parliament, places the matter fairly and squarely before the public and requires the government of the day—whoever it might be at that time—to table that report so that there can be full public knowledge. We know of no reason why the government would not support this other than that they may be unhappy about scrutiny of their actions. Their support or otherwise of this amendment will show whether the government are prepared to be open and transparent in their dealings with issues as important as this.