Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It is exasperating that we have a parliamentary secretary who cannot understand a sentence that is written by the minister and is presented as an explanation of this legislation to the Senate. It is a very important sentence and the minister’s delegate should be on top of it. I ask him if he would be good enough to ask the minister to report back to the Senate as to what is meant by the term ‘requiring consultation with relevant parties’, who the relevant parties will be and what the ‘certain adverse decisions’ referred to in that sentence are.

This is a second reading speech on a very large piece of legislation and this is critical terminology. It is not explicit. It does not give an example. It is entirely reasonable and common—that is what this committee debate is about—for the committee to be informed about such a matter. It is a failure of Senate process when a minister’s delegate in a debate like this says, ‘I’m not going to tell you.’ This is a failure by government to inform the parliament on a debate which is quite critical.

Senator O’Brien, who was trying to help the parliamentary secretary out before, might know. I invite him to contribute to the debate if he does. If not, there are a couple of other pieces of the second reading speech I would like to ask about. We all know that second reading speeches above all have to be clear in what they state because they describe and explain the government’s approach to and reasons for legislation. It is absolutely critical that they not be misunderstood and that they be totally explicable by the government representative. I have a few more of those but, while the parliamentary secretary is considering that with advice, I will sit down and wait.