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

To allow some degree of coherent continuity, I will allow Senator Ludwig to finish most of his strand, but I think this process highlights the problem we have. I can understand from a government management point of view that it is easier for them to move all their amendments as one big blob, but it is less than ideal to do so. I guess it is in keeping with the less than ideal process that we have had, including the fact that it took the minister 35 or 40 minutes to go through explaining all of the 80 different amendments, which range across numerous schedules within the bill and quite different topics.

Senator Ludwig, having used up 15 minutes, still needs more time to make his response because there are so many different topics that are being addressed within these bulk amendments. As I said, I think that is a less than ideal process. I might let Senator Ludwig finish his stream of consciousness before I ask one or two questions about one or two of the specific amendments within the government blob before I sit down.

I note for the record that I put a contingent notice on the Notice Paper, which, fairly obviously, I did not proceed with. It arose from when the second reading question was to be put and sought to split the bill into those sections that related specifically to the Australia-US Free Trade Agreement and separate those out from the rest. It is still my view that, from the point of view of the eminently desirable principle of getting things right rather than just getting things through, we would benefit from more time scrutinising the many and varied issues raised in this legislation, including the many and varied amendments and amendments to amendments that have been put forward in the last day or two.

I did not proceed with that contingent motion because it did not have support, and it is a little bit messy separating out some of the amendments to do with the free trade agreement, but I put on the record that it is my view and the Democrats view that that would be the preferable way to go. If there is a sudden uprising of agreement from the government on that, we would certainly embrace it. We do think that this area of law is going to have major consequences for many different stakeholders and, flowing on from that, indirect consequences for pretty much everybody in the Australian community.

You cannot envisage every aspect of how it is going to operate, but I do think one group that will win out of all these changes, at least for a while, is the lawyers, as there will be a lot of work being done to clarify the impact, the meaning and the operation of a number of these changes. To some extent, that is unavoidable. Any time you make a change in this area, people will test the law—I acknowledge that—but I do think that, whilst there have clearly been significant steps forward from where the bill was originally at, with the various amendments that are in it, the process is still less than ideal. This sort of unnecessarily hasty approach, which has been compounded by unnecessarily compacted debate at the moment—with a range of amendments dealing with a lot of different issues all being put together as one congealed wobbling blob—is less than perfect. But, anyway, that is what we have got, so we may as well get on with it.