Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I move the amendment circulated in my name:

(1) Schedule 1, Part 2, page 7 (line 1) to page 9 (line 10), omit the Part.

It's not often that the minister makes your arguments so eloquently for you, but the minister did exactly that in her latest contribution. Our amendment is an amendment to plead with the government not to meddle with the processes in place that address those who have committed the most serious crimes in this country. As the minister outlined, those who are victims-survivors who have been jailed for five years or longer are not denied access to the scheme, but there are important integrity processes to ensure the scheme and its integrity are not brought into jeopardy. We are pleading with the minister not to make these changes. I think the minister rightly sounds a little embarrassed about what the government has done here. Let me outline very briefly what has occurred. Here we've got the government saying the special assessment process that currently applies for people who either are in jail or have been jailed for five years or longer is suspended other than for those who have been found guilty of the most serious crimes. We agree on that—when there are serious crimes, we agree. Where there are serious crimes, there should be a special assessment process.

The government defines serious crimes as unlawful killing, sexual offences or terrorism. Where I disagree with the minister and the government is that there are a whole raft of offences that I consider just as serious as these or serious enough that they should be subjected to the existing special assessment process. If the minister wants to disagree that these sorts of offences are serious, she's entitled to do that: extortion, distributing child abuse material, possession of child abuse material, accessing child abuse material, kidnapping, robbery, armed robbery, burglary, aggravated burglary, home invasion, aggravated home invasion, carjacking, aggravated carjacking, arson. The minister quibbles over arson causing death. Perhaps she's right; perhaps that's out. So, for that litany of crimes where you've been jailed for five years or longer, you are no longer subject to the special assessment process. This is a change that the government are making. They're changing the status quo of this program and they cannot justify why. Why are those offences where you've been jailed for five years or more not considered, in the minister's mind, to be serious offences? How on earth is distributing child abuse material not a serious offence, when you've been jailed for five years or more? Let's be frank, we all watch what happens in our supreme courts around the country, and, for you to be jailed for five years or more, we're talking about very serious crimes. You do not get jailed in Australia for five years or more for minor offences.

Let me make it very clear. As those who set this scheme up, those special assessment processes for people who have been found guilty, who are sitting in jail—

Mr Perrett interjecting—

I'll take that interjection.

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