Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Finance and Debt Reduction) Share this | Hansard source

I move opposition amendment (1) on sheet 6087:

(1)    Schedule 1, item 5, page 7 (line 4 and 5), omit subsection (3), substitute:

        (3)    An approved clearing house means one of the following:

             (a)    a licensed superannuation clearing house, which meets the minimum standards specified in the regulations for the purposes of this paragraph; or

             (b)    a government-subsidised clearing house, selected subject to a competitive process for awarding a government contract, as specified in the regulations for the purposes of this paragraph.

This amendment is basically to encompass a wider capacity for the usage of clearing houses. We should not just have clearing houses such as the hand-picked Medicare clearing house. We should have the capacity for other people to participate in this process. If we are truly going to support small business—and I hear the Treasurer and the Prime Minister talking about their support of small business—then surely we should engage in the delivery of what would be access to government funds through a process that has no reason to just be quarantined to Medicare but should be widened. In our amendment we have increased the capacity of clearing houses to be ‘a government-subsidised clearing house, selected subject to a competitive process for awarding a government contract, as specified in the regulations for the purposes of this paragraph.’

It has been stated through all the speeches that have been given so far from this side and through the committee work that there are people with the capacity to deliver a clearing house outcome, and we should be doing our best to endeavour to keep them in the marketplace. It does seem rather unfair that we have gone out and picked a winner in Medicare, especially when there has been no real diligence done on Medicare’s capacity to provide that outcome. I clearly spelt that out in my speech in the second reading debate on this matter. This amendment is basically going forward and saying, ‘Let’s test the marketplace. Let’s see if we can get the best value for our dollar. Let’s increase the description so that we allow other Australians to participate in this process.’