Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition recommends to the Senate that we should make absolutely clear what our intent is. Our intent is that there ought to be a more vigorous auditing regime during the reregistration process and that the risk management principles be enshrined into the legislation. Of course, the opposition supported that part of the Greens second reading amendment which also related to the prioritisation of providers for re-registration.

Senator Xenophon, you might well have a view of this government that is: ‘Hi. I’m from the government. Trust me.’ But we on this side are a bit more suspicious. The government has written a lot of nice words in the letter to Senator Hanson-Young, but there were a lot of weasel words in there, too—‘best endeavours’, ‘we’ll try’ and ‘we’ll seek to achieve through regulation’. The reason that I am getting a bit suspicious is that this minister has said exactly the same words: ‘We’re going to do it. We’re already doing it. It’s all happening.’ If that is the case, why is the government resisting so badly the inclusion of a provision which makes it clear beyond doubt that this Senate wants to enshrine risk management principles into the legislation, that it wants to make sure that it actually does happen so that it can test whether the risk management principles that I included in the regulations are appropriate? If we do not think they are appropriate when the regulations come in, we would be able to take what we might consider to be appropriate action at that point in time.

Senator Xenophon, you seem to be arguing that the amendment is not prescriptive enough, that perhaps we should be going into even more detail. We have tried to approach it in a very balanced way. We want to get the balance right, which is to make it very clear that we think it is important for those risk management principles to be enshrined in the legislation. We want to make it very clear that the Senate will be looking very carefully at that part of the regulations when they eventually come through.

What makes me very suspicious is: why is the government spending so much time resisting this amendment if, as it is essentially saying to us, ‘It’s already happening anyway; it will be happening anyway.’ I smell a rat, Senator Xenophon.