Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Can I just complete this line of questioning, then. So, given evolving global developments—not frozen in time; evolving foreign policy—do you acknowledge that this creates uncertainty in organisations' ability to plan for the long term, that is, to enter into arrangements that they know are actually going to continue over the next five or 10 years? This is because of the risk that, because of the retrospective nature and the far-reaching nature of this legislation, an arrangement that they put in place now, in five years time, could be overturned quite arbitrarily. This would be at the whim of a foreign minister—who may not be you; who may be somebody else. They can decide that on the basis of—they don't have to provide reasons; they don't have to provide guidelines. We just have to trust that a task force within the department is doing acceptable work. Can you see that this provides a great deal of uncertainty and concern for organisations and their ability to enter into these long-term arrangements?