Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

I suspect this is something we're going to have to agree to disagree on. It's not that the government can't think of examples of exceptional circumstances; it's that the government does not wish to constrain the commission by giving examples of exceptional circumstances.

I can think of examples of what I'd think might be exceptional circumstances, and I'm sure that you can as well, Senator Shoebridge. But it's neither your job nor mine to decide for the commission what those exceptional circumstances are. It's the job of the commission, acting independently of government, without being constrained by examples or rules that a government puts down. We want this to be an independent body. We want it to make its own decisions about what it considers to be exceptional circumstances, which may very well be the same as I think, or it maybe something different.