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

It is deeply unfortunate to hear the kind of rhetoric we heard from the government on what should be careful, considered and, I would have hoped, cross-party support for major institutional reform. Let's be clear what the bill does. It tears down—and there are some rational reasons to do it—a very core pillar of our legal and administrative decision-making framework. It totally abolishes it and replaces it with a new body. You don't do that lightly. You don't do it with an inquiry that runs over Christmas on a government dominated lower house committee where key stakeholders like the Law Council say:

… it remains very concerned that the Committee's truncated inquiry period will undermine or diminish the democratic and proper scrutiny of the Bills.

That's not my position or the Greens' position. That's the position of the Law Council, and it was shared by a series of key stakeholders about a government inquiry that basically started on Christmas Eve and ended on Australia Day. That's the worst possible process for major institutional reform.

Now the Attorney, through the minister here, says that they want yet another sham inquiry to finish by 13 March on a committee that doesn't have a spare hearing date between now and 13 March, unless the chair decides to make us sit on the weekend. To suggest that's a good process for fundamental legal reform, which we only get one chance at doing every two or three decades, is genuinely embarrassing.

Going to the bill itself, we have the government, the Attorney, saying that they consulted with the sectors in the course of this. They met with them, but they didn't listen. There are very, very significant problems with this bill that may in fact, in some circumstances, drive things backwards. One of the most remarkable things about it is that the government says this is all about integrity in the selection and appointment process. We share the government's concerns about the appointment process that happened under the former government without any due process. We share the government's concerns about that, and we never want to see that happen again, but the government's bill makes all the integrity measures discretionary, so a future Attorney can just ignore all the integrity measures that they're putting in this bill and do exactly what the former government did. So to come in here and lecture the Greens on integrity, when you want to abolish a major institution, have a sham inquiry over Christmas and then another sham inquiry after that and then to put forward a bill with discretionary integrity measures—you should be ashamed of yourselves.

Not only are there the integrity problems with the bill but also the social security sector has very substantial concerns that tens and tens of thousands of social security claimants are going to lose their tier 1 review rates. That may mean nothing to the government but, when the people struggling to survive on social security are going to be told that their primary review right when they lose an entitlement or have their entitlement docked is going to be abolished by the government with no solution under the table to fix it, that concerns the Greens. And we're not willing to just wash through legislation that takes away fundamental rights for social security claimants—people who are already suffering on benefits that you won't lift. We're not just going to abolish their rights in a fast and dirty inquiry according to your timetable.

Similar concerns have been raised within the refugee sector about the reduction of rights for refugee claimants with this bill. So to lecture us on integrity, when you've got a bill that has optional integrity measures, to lecture us on wanting a proper inquiry when you had a sham government dominated inquiry over Christmas and now you want to have another sham inquiry through the Senate, and then to pontificate and pretend you've got the moral high ground—ha! We are open to good-faith negotiations with the government. These are things that can be solved. We can work across the chamber and resolve these things. And, if we can resolve them before 24 July and get excellent legal reform and institutional reform, we are super open to doing that, but we're not going to ride roughshod over key stakeholders, we're not going to ride roughshod over social security claimants, and we're not going to go with the artificial timetable here. (Time expired)