Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

I accept a couple of your principles, Minister—that it does not really make a great impact. I take you on face value, in that you may not understand why we are putting it forward and you may not understand the importance of it. But the importance is that, without this change—and I think it was a legislative drafting process—on 18 February, the minister would have made the changes to the permit system. We would have been in a considerably different position now. As I have said, it is entirely consistent with Labor policy, and there is no mischief in this.

But I think it is really important that we ensure that, if regulations are to be made and if that is a determination of parliament, that is the way it should be. We should not have a vote in this place about the permit system, vote that the permit system should be changed and then say, ‘Except, of course, if the minister just says, “No, I don’t feel like it”,’ which is what happened last time. There is no mischief, but it was clearly not the intention to say, ‘We are going to give the minister discretion to be able to either change a regulation or not.’ Clearly it was the intent of parliament. Certainly it was my view that that was the case as we went through the permit system. In fact, the minister in her press statement indicated that it would continue on the day before the regulations said it had to be done by. I think that was timely, and, as I said, there is no mischief to it. But it is not the intent of the opposition to have the will of the Senate say, ‘We have to change these things—unless, of course, the minister decides otherwise.’ It really would not be a direction at all.