Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

We understand the line in the sand argument. The Senate's job as the house of review is to improve legislation and the government does not always get to have it its own way. As I mentioned in my speech on the second reading, we support having unfair contract terms extended from small business to business. This is something we have campaigned about for years. The government has an opportunity to listen to our concerns and what we have outlined about the amendments. There is absolutely no reason we cannot incorporate 95 per cent of small business transactions, as the government's own survey shows, and have that reviewed in two years' time. I totally agree with Senator Day on this issue. There are still a number of other issues with the bill that we can finetune over the next two years.

The Greens will also support Senator Leyonhjelm's amendment on sheet 7759—the extended time for the implementation of this bill—but we believe that the $300,000 stakeholder limit that we have put on this is clear from the evidence received by the committee. We do not believe that it should extend any further at this stage. We are happy with $300,000, so we will not be supporting Senator Day's amendment.