Lyn Allison (Victoria, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I think the whole point of this bill is to facilitate reporting. It seems to me that that is the objective. What we are arguing about here is: reporting of what? There is no point in having this bill if the reports are coming through, and there is no barrier to doing that, and everybody is happy with the current arrangement. Minister, you do not seem to understand what we are getting at here, and that is: why would you put into the bill physical and sexual abuse but not psychological abuse, financial abuse or neglect? Can you explain what is so much more acceptable about psychological abuse compared with sexual and physical abuse? This is what we are trying to get at. Why have you chosen those two and not the others? I understand that the bill gives the broader set of protection for the broader set of abuses, but what determined that you would include just those kinds of abuse and not the others? That is the question.