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

by leave—The Greens oppose schedule 1 in the following terms:

(2)   Schedule 1, Part 1, page 3 (line 2) to page 9 (line 16), Part TO BE OPPOSED.

I am glad to have so much support on this side of the house now! Senators who have been elsewhere in the building may not be aware that our proposal to oppose the whole schedule has been defeated, so we will look to address some of the more serious concerns we have around this policy. Senators will be aware that I am moving this amendment again on behalf of Senator Siewert, who is not able to be here. In her usual constructive fashion, she has proposed two courses of action.

Senator Siewert's approach has been, for reasons I think we have been fairly explicit about describing, that that schedule should in fact have been knocked out of the bill. In the absence of the chamber moving that way, Senator Siewert has proposed a number of amendments which finetune and improve the way that income management, if it is to be perpetuated, will occur. These amendments remove state and federal referrals, which govern who can be placed on income management. It should be pretty well known by now that the Australian Greens strongly oppose the continuation of compulsory income management in the Territory, its expansion to five communities in other states and the broadening of referral powers to state and territory authorities enabling the expansion of income management across Australia.

We probably do not need to dwell. I am not proposing to call a division on this, but I would commend this amendment to the Senate as the first of three amendments that I will move in sequence that are essentially about finetuning, conditioning and improving the way that income management occurs, having set fairly squarely on the record the fact that we do not believe that people should be subjected to this kind of treatment at all.