Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the various senators for their contributions on the Greens amendments and the respectful way in which those contributions were made. I really just want to draw out something that Senator Brandis said, which was that we are attempting to rebalance the way that the bill is drafted back in favour of privacy and away from child protection. In fact, that is not our intention at all. If we had been given evidence on the way through the committee process that this consideration of the full range of offences—everything from shoplifting or speeding to offences committed while you were a child yourself—had any relevance in these background checks then I am not sure that we would be standing here moving these amendments now.

The problem is that the evidence simply is not there. It has not been gathered or collated or, if it has been, it certainly was not provided to the committee in any of the forums, either in a hearing or by way of submissions. So I am not sure that this bill is actually rebalancing back in favour of child protection; it appears to be trading away some rights of privacy without any clear public policy gain whatsoever. So I am not attempting to rebalance anything. We are seeking the evidence that this will in fact provide a greater protection for children. Perhaps the minister wants to stand up and show us the evidence that we missed on the way through the hearing process, because it was not tendered to us.

I just want to correct the record in the sense that we are not trying to trade away the rights of children here. That is absolutely the last thing that I came here to do. The issue is that no evidence was provided to us that this is actually going to be an effective measure in child protection.