Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

The proposal put forward by Senator Evans is, as I said in my speech in the second reading debate, one that has merit. It seeks to address a genuine problem and I think he deserves credit for raising it, as does the minister for making a commitment to pursue the issue. It is one of those issues where there is merit in what both sides are saying. I can understand Senator Evans being less than satisfied as to whether we will get back the minister’s approach, but I can also understand the minister saying that she does not really have much of an option at the moment. But I do think it is one that needs to be followed up.

The complexity of this area of legislation is certainly a problem and means that any time something is changed you always have to look at the flow-on effects, but that is not a reason in itself for not doing something. This government makes monumentally major changes to this area of legislation—sometimes within very short time frames—with a lot of unintended consequences. I think that when groups in the community are clearly being disadvantaged through no fault of their own we should not drag the chain indefinitely. However, I appreciate that the minister is not in a position to do anything about that in the current situation.

Let me assist the minister with her previous comments, because she did indicate that she was a bit lost in the intent of what I was saying. I should indicate that one of the reasons I was out of the chamber is that at the time the Senate was debating this legislation, a Senate committee was also holding public hearings. That is a continual problem, particularly if you are on the crossbench, where you have a range of different responsibilities. Frankly, I think it is a problem—if I could take the opportunity to mention it on the side—that we need to look at again, because a significant number of committees hold hearings during sittings of the Senate. That not only makes it difficult for senators to be in two places at once but also means that the public who provide evidence to and appear before Senate committees can get short-changed by not having the full focus and attention of the senators that they would otherwise get. That is a separate point.

With regard to my comments, I attempted to make it reasonably clear in my speech in the second reading debate that I thought Minister Hockey deserved to be congratulated for acknowledging that this is a problem and removing it. I thought I made that point more than once; I am quite happy to repeat it again. In the current circumstances, it is quite easy for ministers to just persevere regardless and insist on pushing things through and slagging off anybody who criticises them for being soft on welfare cheats and the like. Senator Hockey deserves credit for that. I have said that, and I am quite happy to say it again. It inevitably means that he will cop a bit of a comment or two about backdowns, backflips and the like, but it is certainly much better to acknowledge that there is a problem and to take it out and to look at it again rather than persevering regardless because you do not want to admit a mistake.

The point I was making is that that attitude is not universal amongst government ministers. The fact that it happened on this occasion and that it stood out perhaps shows that it is rarer than one would like. I am not going to go through and give a scorecard on every individual minister, but it is appropriate to draw attention to the fact that, while it is good that the minister recognised a problem and withdrew it from the legislation, it is bad that it got in there in the first place and was so quickly found to be unjustified once it came under some scrutiny. That, I think, is an indication of a culture that can develop. Again, it is not a personal attack on any one individual or anything particularly partisan about the coalition; it is human nature—it is a mindset that develops when you are used to being able to get things through when the levels of scrutiny diminish and you do not do your homework as much because you assume you do not need to. That is the problem I am drawing attention to—whether you want to call it arrogance, hubris or whatever. I think it is appropriate to give the bouquet but that it is also appropriate to point to the flaw being put in there in the first place. There are two different concepts in there. Hopefully, they can be conceptualised at the same time without too much difficulty. That is the point I was trying to get across.