Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I want to respond briefly to some of that faux anger and Logie-winning performance from Minister Cash in her second reading summing up. The reality is that, if this bill had been properly drafted in the first place, you may not have needed to accept 90 per cent of the amendments that the opposition are putting forward. If you'd have actually dealt with the key issues that the opposition were raising with you during those negotiations, you would have accepted some of the key changes that have been put forward by he Australian Industry Group, the Law Council of Australia and the ACTU and dealt with some of the concerns that were raised by the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Senate standing committee. This is a real problem in the context of having clarity in this bill. The clarity is not there. If you had drafted it properly in the first place, maybe we'd have had some clarity, as the Law Council, the Scrutiny of Bills Committee and the Joint Committee on Human Rights sought.

As I indicated during my second reading contribution, we indicated that we were keen to work through some of the issues in the bill and that we were not happy and certainly not supportive of the bill as it stood. There are a number of amendments that we have before the chamber now. I would seek some advice from the Clerk. I know that all the amendments on sheet 8143 have been circulated, but I would certainly like to break it up into more manageable bites so that we can understand exactly what the government is prepared to accept and will not accept. We would like to move amendments (2), (3), (4), (5), (7), (9), (11), (12) and (13) together.

The CHAIR: Is leave granted?