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

I hear what the minister is saying. I understand flexibility, but there is flexibility not to do the right thing as well, so we have concerns about that. I took on board what the minister said around the employment period, but on this one we are very concerned about the fact that it isn't better defined in the legislation. Things can go two ways. I'm not casting aspersions on the secretary and the department, but into the future the lack of interpretation in the legislation could in fact be interpreted in a different way, a way that perhaps was never intended in the first place. We think putting this in place in legislation that actually provides for the secretary to exercise discretion is a better approach. We think the way this is drafted still enables the flexibility to which the minister refers but provides much better bounds around that discretion.