Chris Evans (WA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

After listening to Senator Bartlett trying to straddle the competing interests, I want to make the point that I can count and that I appreciate that the minister has been as frank as she can given her responsibilities, but the arguments about complexity are a bit thin given that we are asking to extend the secretary’s discretion. We are not asking for major amendments to the act; we are asking why, among the many discretions of the secretary, we cannot provide the discretion for this matter.

We ought to focus again on the impact on the individual. This is about people losing their pension as a result of a provision we all agree is not fair in this circumstance. The department is telling people that it cannot help them, that it would like to help them but it cannot. I think we ought to focus on that rather than on the needs of bureaucracy and policy advice. It is interesting that a major provision to do with search and seizure powers—a quite major part of this legislation—was able to be dropped within 11 days of the committee hearing. Policy advice was sought and obtained, a ministerial decision was made and a whole schedule of the bill disappeared. It shows that bureaucracy and policy decision processes can move quickly when it suits. I fail to understand why we cannot move more quickly on this occasion.

As I say, I do not think there is anything in the bill that would prevent us from deferring it for a few days to fix this problem. I really do think it would be preferable to fix it now because, while we say, ‘People will get back to me and we’ll get a policy decision et cetera,’ somebody will lose their pension in the meantime through no fault of their own in the application of the assets test rules. If we can save one person from that, it will be a good thing. Given that we are all in agreement, I urge that we find a way to fix it rather than to allow it to disappear back into the bureaucratic decision-making processes that may not reach fruition for some time.

Question negatived.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

Bill reported with amendments; report adopted.