Andrew Murray (WA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

It seems to me in a sense that the government and the opposition are talking past each other, because the amendment that the government is making to the act in fact recognises that there was a problem. So, if you accept there is a problem and you are dealing with it, that means you are already halfway there.

I would suggest and request that the minister and his department think about an alternative route to resolving this issue of retrospective compensation. As the minister is aware, there is a process for ex gratia payments for individuals who have suffered loss, not as a result of their own circumstances but as a result of particular misadventures with respect to legislation or bureaucratic process, and it falls under the department of finance to make those ex gratia payments—I think there is a particular term for them.

All I am suggesting is that, if the minister and the department and the advisers are not inclined to accept Senator Marshall’s solution, at least a different form of compensation for past injustice should be examined, because I think Senator Marshall has clearly made the case that there was injustice—and, what is more, the government, by changing the act, has recognised there was injustice. So together you are halfway there, and perhaps the solution needs to be of a different kind.

Debate interrupted.