Annette Hurley (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It  is interesting that the government seems to be concentrating quite heavily on criticising the Labor Party and the media for our perceived shortcomings. It would perhaps be rather better engaged in getting its regulation and legislation right, and I think the Customs Legislation Amendment (Border Compliance and Other Measures) Bill 2006 that is before the Senate illustrates that particularly well. I refer to the report of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Legislation Committee on the provisions of this bill, in particular the Accredited Client Program. The export business is obviously vital to Australia. Trade in our part of the world and for our small nation is vitally important, and it is important to get it right. It is clear from the report of the committee that there is some confusion and some debate about whether there was sufficient consultation with the businesses involved and whether the bill adequately allows for proper mechanisms to support the Accredited Client Program. Given that we want to encourage and facilitate trade while ensuring that there is proper monitoring of what comes into our country, it is very clear that we need much better consideration of the way this bill implements its supposed priorities and obligations. However, I think the shadow minister has canvassed this issue fairly comprehensively.

I move:

At the end of the motion, add “but the Senate:

(a)

notes the:

(i)

delay in introducing the Accredited Client Program,

(ii)

waste and cost blow-outs in the associated Cargo Management Re-engineering project,

(iii)

broken promise to industry regarding the abandonment of duty-deferral, and

(iv)

absence of any security enhancing measures in the Accredited Client Program and

(b)

calls on the Government to conduct and publish the results of a thorough cost-benefit analysis of the Accredited Client Program, examining both the original duty deferral payment scheme and the revised payment scheme”.