David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I note that the government's responses at this stage of the committee repeated the same unmeritorious non sequiturs that they gave when we presented them earlier, and just simply repeating the same unmeritorious arguments doesn't improve them. Failing to understand that so-called 'temporary suspensions' can be permanent and pretending that that isn't the case doesn't make them any less permanent. Suggesting that the often vulnerable witness can seek a review doesn't remove the kind of policy basis for the AFP itself to review the suspension. Suggesting that operational flexibility should trump the protection of witnesses doesn't make that a meritorious argument. Simply saying that you want to give the AFP the flexibility to not provide witness protection because it's operationally beneficial to the AFP doesn't make it a good argument. Saying it three times doesn't improve it. When it comes to the question of raising the threshold permitting the AFP to remove witness protections when there's been a marginal limitation on the ability of the AFP to provide the protection, simply saying that you opposed that three times doesn't make it good policy. We continue to press for those amendments.

I note that Senator Thorpe is not present, and I note that my office has been asked to raise on her behalf that she was seeking some further amendments to provide for additional expressed considerations to consider a prisoner's rehabilitation and reintegration into the community, community safety and humanitarian concerns. They seem to be matters that would be entirely appropriate to include. I'm not in a position to move those amendments, because I don't have in a form to put before the committee, but I will just indicate for the record that they seem entirely appropriate additional matters to include in the bill, and they in large part would have been picked up by the amendments that we put in sheet 2061.