Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

The reason that you go out with the list to consult is not so that you insist before or during or after the consultation process that the list can't be changed. The reason that you consult is in order to listen carefully to feedback and to make changes. In relation to that item that the government has already—I think I've made clear mid-step that, as that consultation process is going on, the government will make changes in relation to that issue. There may well be other changes. That is the point of open government here. The list is not predetermined. It is not that people sent a letter and said: 'This is the list. We are not going to change our position.' The list is provided there for public commentary, and we're not sensitive; we don't have a glass jaw about these things. Where we need to make changes, the minister, the department and the agency, in exercising their proper functions, will make changes. That's inherent in the consultation process. Even outside of the ideas of co-design and all of that sort of stuff, the very idea of consultation does connote that changes will be made.