Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

That was an interesting response from the minister. I am quite taken aback, given that this act, like no other, gives the minister special powers—and the minister has actually boasted on TV that he is the most powerful Indigenous affairs minister ever—but that you do not give him the power to revoke a permit where someone of bad character has been given it. It just seems amazing that you do not give it to the minister or to the land council, that you actually do not provide for anyone else to be able to cancel the permit. One would have to say it is a little out of kilter with the general approach, which is to say that the minister can do anything he damned well likes in any circumstance. Senator Crossin, with her local experience, raises one particular occurrence, but the minister’s response seems to say, ‘Because we have had particular problems with people being inconvenienced because someone has revoked the permit, the answer is to give no power at all to revoke the permit.’ On the face of it, I am warming to Senator Bartlett’s amendments.