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

Those words find favour with the opposition and we will be supporting those amendments. I could go to the usual recourse that I have had in this debate which is that they do not go far enough. It is a pity that the government have not picked up much of the amendments moved by Labor, the Democrats and the Greens in this debate. We think that the ultimate outcome will be a lesser outcome for the claimants and the participants in the process. Saving that, these are amendments that do go some way to ameliorating the harm that the greater bill does.

Question agreed to.

The opposition opposes schedule 2 in the following terms:

(16)  Schedule 2, page 25 (line 2) to page 59 (line 7), TO BE OPPOSED.

We seek to delete schedule 2 from the bill. We have indicated that if the government were not prepared to accept the sensible amendments proposed by Labor, and perhaps even the alternatives proposed by the Democrats and the Greens, we would be opposing schedule 2. We do not think it adds to the bill. We do not think schedule 2 in the form that we now have before us will provide those things that the government believe will eventuate—that is, that it would remove red tape or facilitate claimants within the Native Title Tribunal area in resolving their differences. Labor believe that this bill will, in fact, add to the woes that are already there and will not assist.