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

The Greens still oppose this bill. We do not believe it is fair; we believe that it in effect continues the discrimination that has occurred through this particular tool. One of our concerns with the bill is the fact that people are forced to take one option or the other. We do believe that this amendment addresses some of our concerns with this process, and so I indicate that the Greens will support this amendment, given that it does enable people to have what the minister says they already have, but they do not have with this bill, and that is choice. I remind people of the comments I made earlier on the NDIS: in that process people can access both schemes—and I know it is quite a different process—but they can and in fact are required to. In this case, people should not be forced to accept poor compensation for the loss, or underpayment, of wages or the loss of opportunity those wages would have afforded them. This does allow them to take action through the courts, and so we will be supporting it.