Ursula Stephens (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition (Social and Community Affairs)) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to take note of the answers from the minister about the access card and I acknowledge Senator Mason’s contribution. He really made the case that we do need a much longer and more comprehensive review of the legislation as it stands because there are so many issues outstanding.

First of all, I put on record that there is no-one on this side of the debate against the use of smartcard technology in service delivery. We do want to improve service delivery and reduce fraud in the system. That does not mean that we have to support the proposal we have in front of us with the access card. Certainly the concerns that have been raised and that were belittled by the minister in the Senate today just make us think more clearly about what problems are confronting us. We heard dismissive comments from the minister, who was not really interested in or prepared to listen to the dissent. We heard him belittle his own colleagues on his own back bench about their concerns, which involve not only privacy but also the abuse of this new access card for fraudulent purposes. We heard him mislead the Senate, I think it could be said, in the sense that, as Senator Forshaw said, we do not have six weeks to consider this very important piece of legislation. We have got just a few weeks to consider the issues involved. And this morning we heard that the legislation is being amended as we move to consider it—so this is a moving feast.

This brings us back to a critical issue in the Senate. More and more we are seeing legislation drafted in haste and rushed through this chamber simply on a whim of the government. Such a truncated process does not allow a good public policy outcome to emerge from a comprehensive Senate inquiry; instead we are faced with a limited inquiry. We have dissenting voices. Not only have submissions to the inquiry been belittled; quite genuine concerns held by members of the public are just being dismissed out of hand.

Another real concern that I have is the registration process and how that is going to operate out in rural and regional Australia. The idea that every person over 18—I think about 16½ million people on the government’s estimates—will have to register for this card needs to be examined. How that is going to happen is a mystery to me. It is an ambitious process that the government has really underestimated with respect to both costs and logistics. Yet it is not an issue that the minister wants to hear any constructive comments about, let alone any criticism. That is just one of the issues that concerns me.

We have real concerns from the industry that the entire technology associated with this access card is being subcontracted out to a range of providers. The government’s whole record of technology adaptation and adoption has not been very well proven in the past, so how is the technology around this card going to be safeguarded in the future? There are many issues and concerns that this legislation raises, and the dismissive attitude of the minister today in dealing with questions both from his own side of politics and from the senators on this side of the chamber really did him a disservice that I think we are all going to see much more of.

Question agreed to.