Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Hansard source

I move my amendment on sheet 2979. I want to quickly take 60 seconds. I won't take longer than the minister's time, because I know he needs to say things, but I want to explain quickly to the Australian people what my amendment will do. It will bring the mechanism for financial penalties in the Parliamentary Privileges Act into line with financial penalties in the majority of legislation, replacing hard numbers with a mechanism to adjust for inflation as well. A penalty unit was established as a way of ensuring financial penalties remained in check with inflation as per the Crimes Act. We use penalty units in tax legislation and occupational health and safety legislation, but apparently the Parliamentary Privileges Act of 1987—I reinforce that this was back in 1987, Australians—is locked into financial penalties of up to $5,000 for a person and $25,000 for a corporation, with no adjustment for inflation.

The average punter stares down the barrel of penalty units for a financial penalty. Why not a penalty for the people that mislead parliament? By voting down this amendment, the major parties are seeking to limit accountability for their ministers and, quite frankly, I thought we were turning over a leaf here and leading by example. So I just don't know why you won't vote this through. We should be held accountable like everybody else in society, and that is the way it needs to go down.