Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was not quite sure what was in the boxes. It might have been your files, Senator Forshaw! Over the next few weeks there will be a Senate inquiry, which I am chairing and for which Senator Forshaw is the deputy chair. It is an important inquiry. We are sitting for three days.

Let us be quite frank about this. If we all agree—and I think that we do—that the aims to combat fraud and to improve access are good, the question then will be: what are the safeguards for privacy and how do we stop function creep in the utility of the card? You are right about the Australia Card in one sense. It is easy to scare the Australian public about the smartcard. But it may in fact be the right public policy tool—and I think it is—to stop fraud and to improve access. You may in fact score some political points from this, as the Labor Party did with a very good policy initiative such as the GST. The Labor Party was wrong on that but nearly won the 1998 election on the back of it. All I am asking for and all the government is asking for is that this issue be looked at seriously, comprehensively, diligently and with senatorial purpose.