Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

The government does not support the amendments. As I indicated to the chamber earlier, there is a range of measures associated with this legislation to provide more support for parents and a capacity to work with them to identify with them their particular issues that might be impacting on a child's attendance at school and liaison with various people who can assist. But we do not believe this overall amendment is useful. It is already the case that people can bring support people to the conference. The reality is there will be some cases when a parent does not attend the conference and suspension of payments may be the only way to ensure that parents are engaging with the school about their kid's attendance. We do not think the amendment is necessary and it may in fact prevent us taking the measures that will be required to ensure we get a more responsive approach to the need for children to attend school.