Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I think the minister has given the game away with the use of the term ‘reasonable’ just before he sat down. This clause, which I am minded to support the Greens on having deleted from the legislation, simply says if the minister is ‘of the opinion’; it is not even ‘reasonable opinion’. So good luck to any court trying to determine whether the minister was or was not of the opinion that the performance of the CEO had been unsatisfactory. I would have thought that all the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations would have to do would be to bowl up to court and say that in her opinion the CEO’s performance was unsatisfactory. How can you cross-examine on what the minister’s opinion was, whether it was right, reasonable, indifferent or indeed an opinion that was reached as a result of a degree of capriciousness on behalf of the minister? The minister is given complete carte blanche. There is no requirement that it be even a reasonable opinion in the way the legislation has been drafted.

Given that the term ‘reasonable’ is absent, I would think that natural justice and things of that nature may well fall by the wayside, given that the only test that the Labor Party believes is necessary, it would seem, is all about giving the minister the complete power if in her opinion the performance has been unsatisfactory. There is no test of objectivity in relation to the minister’s opinion—it is just whether the minister’s opinion was of a particular mind—so if the minister gives evidence to the effect that the CEO’s performance has been unsatisfactory I would think that would be the beginning and end of the court case. It might be one of the shortest cases that would be before the courts. In fact, I would think it would not even reach the courts because of the provisions of this legislation . So, given the minister’s inability to provide any guarantee in relation to this very wide clause, the opposition will most definitely be supporting the Greens amendment.