Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I think it is important to clarify this for the record. Let's be very clear. On the MAAL bill, I have said repeatedly in this chamber—I have congratulated Joe Hockey for the piece of legislation, and I have been very clear and have said this from the start and have spoken about this bill on perhaps 10 occasions now—that it is a bill worthy of support, but it can and should be improved. And there are measures that could have made the bill even better than what we will be voting on tonight. So we end up with a bad system. There is a government proposal to make it slightly better, and the MAAL bill does some good things. We have always said that as the Labor Party. Then this chamber moves a whole bunch of amendments that massively improve that legislation, and the Greens cut a last-minute deal to water it back again. So let's be clear: they cave in.