David Johnston (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Justice and Customs) Share this | Hansard source

I am obliged to Senator Murray for his assistance and contribution with those remarks, and I am also very much obliged to Senator Ludwig for his hard work on this subject. The government has previously expressed its view on these amendments, as I am sure Senator Ludwig anticipates. We are not in a position to accept them. We take on board everything that is being said. I can see that the amendments are presented in a spirit of seeking to further enhance and preserve privacy and to do the sorts of things that they do, which I respect. The situation with the Henry VIII clause is one which, obviously, concerns all senators. That is not to say that there are not times when a Henry VIII clause has no legitimate function. This is an instance when one is minded to say that the response of government to a very versatile, dynamic financial system needs to be extremely responsive and quick and equally dynamic and innovative. Accordingly, we must be able to respond to the mechanisms and devices of the financial services industry which facilitate the rapid movement of large sums of money.

The question that springs to mind is, ‘What are the safeguards?’ The safeguards are that such regulations made to respond to the products, mechanisms and devices are simply disallowable in parliament. I think that answers the need for the clause. I think the clause is a legitimate use of an extraordinary power. It is not used without considerable consideration. This is one of the rare occasions when the power is legitimate and should be used.

The government, noting the detail that has gone into it, does not accept the amendment on deregistration. As I am sure Senator Ludwig has heard, the act of 2006 instituted a registration regime, not a licensing scheme. It is important that the registration system captures all providers of remittance services and maintains the capacity on one database to revisit the previous intelligence as gathered. I think that is a very important point that, respectfully, has not been considered with respect to this amendment. Taking information off has the potential, almost on a commonsense basis, to undermine the integrity of the system.