Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move opposition amendments (1) and (3) on sheet 2042 together:

(1) Clause 2, page 2 (table item 1), omit "3", substitute "4".

(3) Page 2 (after line 11), after clause 3, insert:

4 Review of operation of amendments

(1) The Minister must cause a review of the operation of the amendments made by this Act to be conducted as soon as practicable after the end of the period of 18 months starting on the day Part 2 of Schedule 1 to this Act commences.

(2) The persons who conduct the review must give the Minister a written report of the review.

(3) The Minister must cause a copy of the report of the review to be tabled in each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after the Minister receives the report.

Senator Pocock moved a second reading amendment that referred to the introduction of a DPA scheme, which is an important issue; however, it only went as far as saying it was worthy of consideration. I will be moving an amendment in the committee stage to formally, not just by way of a second reading amendment, amend the bill to ensure that a scheme is not just worthy of consideration but, indeed, adopted.

The amendments that I have just moved, though—amendments (1) and (3) on sheet 2042—are in relation to a statutory review which the coalition has proposed as part of the bill. This is a very simple and sensible proposition. As I said in my speech in the second reading debate, we support the provisions of the bill that the government has put forward. These are sensible changes to the law which adopt coalition policy from the previous parliament. But we acknowledge, of course, that best practice in this space evolves over time. That is why we have proposed a statutory review. It is a straightforward solution to ensure that the measures are working as intended and it demonstrates our commitment to ensuring that our corporate criminal laws are appropriately calibrated in a rapidly changing world.