Amanda Vanstone (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the senator for his supplementary question. The senator asks me if it is satisfactory to say compensation has been paid. If proper compensation has been paid, yes; if you try to use this parliament to in fact pay a dollar a day because of a mistake that you have made on a technicality, no. So compensation is not always an appropriate and adequate response. My own view is if you limit it to a dollar a day you are not being fair. But if you say a mistake has been made and if appropriate compensation is paid, sometimes that is the best that can be done: someone can be compensated for what has happened. The government’s job is to fix errors, not to legislate them away and hide them, Senator Evans, which is what happened when you were last in a party that was in government.