Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

The Seacare Authority is a formal body, as I understand it, established by legislation. I trust that they would not need any extra resources to monitor the legislation and its outworkings, because that is part and parcel of their normal task. To report to me at an early stage of any unintended consequences is something I would alert them to. I—and, I would imagine, every legislator in this place—would wish to know if there were any signs on the horizon that might indicate that there are unintended consequences. And of course if that is the case then we may need to come back here for the appropriate changes to be made. I do not think it will necessarily be resource intensive for the authority, but it is something that I will be inviting them to keep a close eye on and will inform my office to ensure that we can deal with any further unintended consequences, of which of course we hope there will be none. But having been in this place for as long as I have, I have seen very well-intentioned legislation have unforeseen consequences. And of course the very fact that we are here is an example of unforeseen consequences.

That legislation was passed in 1992, and, irrespective of whether you were in the Maritime Union of Australia or the Liberal Party of Australia, everybody believed that the legislation acted in a certain way—and there was unanimity about that. Yet we had a situation of the Federal Court of Australia coming to a different determination, as the courts should do. They have to interpret the law as it is written, not necessarily how it may have been intended by legislators. That is what we are confronted with, so unintended consequences unfortunately can arise, albeit in this case—and I will try and do my maths—about 20-plus years later. But you can be assured that, in asking the authority to monitor the situation, I do not think we are overly burdening them.