Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition supports the Democrats amendments. I will not go into this in detail. Senator Bartlett has outlined what the amendments do. Anything is better than what the government is putting up. We need to ameliorate what the government intends. The government is not clear about the true motive behind all of this. It says that it is about accountability, improvement, efficiency and effectiveness. These provisions add bureaucracy and red tape to the overall process. They will not allow the NTRBs to do their job effectively and efficiently, quite frankly. I said that at the beginning and it continues to annoy me.

Question negatived.