Nick Sherry (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Banking and Financial Services) Share this | Hansard source

and our Fair Work Australia, which we believe delivers this. The former National Party member should be the last one to talk about selection processes given his behaviour in jumping parties. Back to the issue: the selection processes that Labor have announced demonstrate our commitment to the Nolan principles. The Nolan rules govern appointments to government bodies in the United Kingdom. Labor have consistently argued for this policy for the last few years. The Nolan rules require that appointments are merit based and the process of appointment is independent and transparent. Labor and all of the other parties, including of course the Democrats, have advocated merit based appointments. This government is tired and out of touch after almost 12 years in government—tricky, mean, stale—and we saw the very worst of that on display last week. It is important that political appointments to bodies, such as the ACCC, are based solely on merit.

The appointment model suggested by the Democrat amendment does not meet the detailed requirements set out by Labor and so, although we support the sentiment behind the Democrat amendment, we believe it requires further development from government and we will not be supporting the detail of this particular amendment.