Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Multicultural Engagement) Share this | Hansard source

I will be pursuing some of those issues. I note, Minister, that you didn't have the benefit of sitting on the inquiry that looked into this bill, so you don't have the benefit of knowing—or maybe you do know—that the Australian Human Rights Commission did not recommend this cost model. The Australian Human Rights Commission recommended a cost model where courts could actually use their discretion to take into account a range of factors and then come to a conclusion as to where costs should lie based on the interests of justice. So they did not agree to the cost model which is proposed in this legislation. It should be stated that Kate Jenkins, for whom we all have an immense amount of respect, when she put forward her proposal referred to section 570 of the industrial relations legislation rather than the cost model which is proposed under this legislation. I provide that by way of background in relation to further questions we'll be putting to probe this issue.

In relation to the scope of the act, there's obviously a process underway whereby the government has been looking at introducing a religious discrimination act. Just for the record, if a religious discrimination act were passed and became law, would claims brought under the religious discrimination act also fall within this proposed cost regime?