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

Minister, I do note, with respect, that you qualified your answer in terms of the evidence and that you haven't been part of the committee process. I want to read onto the record testimony that was provided to the committee with respect to this issue of insurance costs and the concerns of, for example, faith-based schools in relation to insurance costs. I'll read from a joint submission to the committee on this bill from Adventist Schools Australia, the Australian Association of Christian Schools and Christian Schools Australia. They stated:

Discussions with insurance providers—

so they've actually had discussions with their own insurance providers about this—

has also confirmed that the arrangements in the Bill are likely to result in increased premiums, possibly proactively, as a result of the potential for greater claim payments.

So the obvious concern is that, if insurance premiums go up, these costs will have to be passed through to consumers, and that means the families who are sending students to faith-based schools. In other words, parents will have to pay more to educate their children as a result of the costs regime under this act. Some of these schools have already had discussions with insurance providers, and they provided that testimony in good faith. Can you provide a guarantee? You say you don't have any evidence, so presumably you therefore can't provide a guarantee that schools fees will not increase as a result of this legislation because of an increase in insurance premiums.