Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The difficulty I have with that is if, for example, you change your mind or do not want a particular employment service provider to have discretion. There is then no guarantee that that discretion will be given to service providers. My concern is that, where discretion is purely provided in a contract, there is no legislative base for it. There is no requirement for that discretion. We have now given Centrelink discretion, which we are really pleased about, but discretion does not have to be given to others. It is not in the legislation; it is not even in the legislative instrument. It is in a contract to that service provider. This is very important for all the reasons that we were talking about before. I am a bit perplexed as to why the government supports the discretion for Centrelink—support which I am pleased about—but does not ensure that the discretion for the employment service providers has a legislative base as well.