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

Certainly, the coalition supports the passage of this legislation. But I would say—through you, Temporary Chair Hughes—to Senator Shoebridge that I am absolutely aghast that this issue came to the attention of the government in July or August last year and we are now here, in February, in the context where, when it suits the government's priorities, they're prepared to move legislation on the basis of extraordinarily limited scrutiny, and we're now forced to consider this issue after a delay of over six months. It's quite extraordinary. The issue was not brought to the attention of the legal and constitutional affairs committee, on which both Senator Shoebridge and I sit, and no-one would have been aware of this issue but for the fact that public servants within Services Australia brought this matter to the attention of the opposition. That's how aghast they were by the situation. The government has given these anodyne summaries of the provisions and hasn't given any insight with respect to the seriousness of these provisions during the course of this legislative process. That is an appalling state of affairs.

I would like to move on to another issue, one dealing with the location of registries. From the coalition's perspective, the Administrative Review Tribunal provides, in registries, important review and appeal processes for the Australian people. It should provide access to those processes to all Australians across the whole of Australia, yet the fact of the matter is that the Administrative Review Tribunal bill, when it was initially presented by the Attorney, did not provide for a basic obligation that there be an Administrative Review Tribunal registry in each capital or in each state or territory of Australia. Why was that the case, Minister? Why did the original legislation not provide that there should be a registry in every capital city of every state and every territory of this country? Why did the bill omit such an obvious obligation?