Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

As I understand it, under the legislation it is the minister who consults. But, obviously, that is not an unusual statutory provision and my first answer does stand, which is that we would envisage an active role by the commissioner in consultation as well as, I assume, officers of the Treasury in that process.

I do not quite understand the 'lead' concept, to be honest. We would often have a consultation process where you would have a number of levels of consultation. That is not so unusual; you might have ministerial and you might have the different levels of the public service in any consultation process.

It is not intended as part of this legislation that there be any additional resources. I am sure that you will tell me why we should do that, but it is not intended. We have made various decisions, as you would know, through supplementation for SACS and so forth, for some parts of the not-for-profit sector. But that is for a different process.