Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I have a number of amendments that I will soon seek leave to move, but I want to respond to both Senator Cameron's comments and Senator Colbeck's comments and indicate the Greens' support for the amendments that the government has just moved. We were prepared to support the ALP's amendments when they first brought them into the place, and I had a second reading amendment that likewise called for an independent Inspector-General of Biosecurity. I think the government has made a very wise decision to proceed with the amendments. Again, it did not go quite as far as we would have liked, but they are good amendments to this bill.

We have understood the need to make sure that we progress this biosecurity legislation. It has been a long time coming, but we saw the role of the inspector-general as being very important, which is why we were prepared to move amendments and support the ALP's amendments. When the government saw that there was a need for and strong support for changes to the legislation, I think it was a very good move that they in fact moved amendments themselves. We are supporting those amendments.

However, as I will articulate further when we get to the Greens amendments, we do not think this bill is perfect. You could say that no bill in this place is necessarily perfect, but there are some holes in the legislation that we think need to be addressed and that stakeholders think need to be addressed. So while we are very pleased that the government have proceeded with this particular set of amendments, and we support them in doing that, we will still seek to move some further amendments. But the government does have our support for these amendments.