Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Hansard source

‘Reasonable’ and ‘arbitrary’ are not necessarily mutually exclusive. The point that the minister makes here is essentially that it is the opinion of the government that this is both reasonable and not arbitrary. What we are seeing here—and it is a matter that I think we will see again on a number of occasions this evening—is that ultimately what will count are the numbers in this chamber. That is the basis on which the government regards it as both reasonable and not arbitrary—no other. It is the numbers in this chamber.