Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is genuinely encouraging to see that so many people here have read the report—although it seems to me that the people who are here were all on the committee. In his answers today the minister referred to the committee’s recommendation. The significant recommendation of our committee was that the bills be put together. It is genuinely encouraging to see that the minister has accepted that. We found that out by him telling us in this chamber—we have not had a formal response—and I would like to see a lot more of that.

In answering questions today, the minister once again—and I am going to quote Senator Fifield’s comment about taking things both ways—acknowledged that there were issues in this report on which all members of the committee agreed, and those issues were around the focus and intent of the legislation. There was never any question that any member of the committee had any problem with the intent of the legislation. That was restated consistently not just by members of the committee but by many of the people who came and gave evidence to our committee. There was no-one who took the time and effort in the extraordinarily restricted time frame to give evidence to our committee who said that they supported fraud in any way, shape or form in any part of government service delivery. That was agreed by everyone, and that was a really important starting point.

The third consecutive minister from this government who has had carriage of the legislation, when asked today quite reasonable questions about process, reverted to the same old attack. Anyone who had any opposition to anything, who had any questions about the extraordinarily ridiculous time frame in which the whole parliament was expected to consider this very complex legislation or who sought more information was immediately labelled as a friend of fraudsters. It is that old tactic of labelling first instead of debating: label first and then maybe get around to talking about the issues, as Senator Forshaw pointed out. The minister said that we should ask questions of ourselves about what our position on fraud is before we start asking questions about the access card. Let us get this really clear: there is no-one in this place who supports the defrauding of government services.

We have not seen this new combined bill. The only information which we had before us as a committee was the original bill. Most witnesses who came before our committee restated their concerns about the speed with which this committee was moving. They were concerned about the lack of detail that was provided to them in this very complex process and they wanted to have all the information before the parliament, and the whole Australian community were forced to live with whatever came out of the process. That is not too difficult a concept. That is, as Senator Fifield presented, the way that this parliament should operate. We should be able to effectively review legislation and improve it. That was the intent of the Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration. There were many points about which members of the community and people who represented different groups were concerned.