Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and Fair Competition) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator McLucas. I did not know questions came from that direction across the chamber, but I will do my best to answer them better than they have been when they have gone the other way of recent times. Firstly, I want to make a point—I said this earlier—about Senator Moore's speech, and I want to make a point about the comments you have made, Senator McLucas. With all due respect, the endless, interminable process that has now been around this issue for so long—you have demonstrated quite well, because you are quite right, that it is complex—is actually one of the reasons the coalition has decided to support this piece of legislation, because ideas drop into the bureaucratic morass that is intergovernmental arrangements in this country. Too often—not all the time, but too often—they do not come out.

I do not plan to give a complete list of every person I have spoken to about this legislation, nor to go through my diary over the last week and outline all the consultations. I have indicated the coalition is supporting the bill.