Andrew Bartlett (Queensland, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

I will speak for one minute as Deputy Chair of the Senate Standing Committee on the Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts. I think it is appropriate that I also acknowledge the report, which is a very significant one. I want to pay particular tribute to the secretariat, who did a lot of work with a large amount of material, a lot of differing views and a number of hearings, and to those senators who worked very hard to pull the report together while trying to maintain what was pretty close to unanimity. I certainly acknowledge that a number of them put a lot more work into the report than me; however, I certainly followed it as an issue of importance for a range of reasons.

When I was Chair of the Senate Environment, Communications, Information Technology and the Arts References Committee, that committee wanted to explore this area but could not get agreement from the then minister. Hence it is ironic that the minister himself later decided to have an inquiry into this area. So we got the inquiry it is a valuable report and I urge people to examine it closely. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.