Natasha Stott Despoja (SA, Australian Democrats) Share this | Hansard source

First I want to acknowledge that I understand what the Greens are trying to achieve. The Democrats have sympathy for that because we agree that the legislation before us is not sufficiently full of the various appropriate accountability mechanisms or safeguards. Looking at the debates we have had and the amendments that have been moved in relation to schedule 1—from time limits on controlled operations right through to who can or cannot issue WPCs—I think that the effect of this is to return to the status quo.

We understand that the said aim of the legislation is to do those things to which Senator Ludwig referred, particularly harmonise laws and ensure Commonwealth-state cooperation and the ability to work together. But there are some instances where you need to say that the government, in drafting legislation, needs to go back to the drawing board. In the last half an hour or so, there have been a series of amendments, some that have come from the crossbenches, that have gone further than the Senate committee recommendations. There were also Senate committee recommendations that were totally worthy and appropriate and should have been adopted. I acknowledge that the minister and the government have adopted, in a limited form, some of those recommendations, but I think it is entirely legitimate for Senator Nettle to move an amendment to oppose the schedule in full and, as a result, seek to return us to the current circumstance and ask the government to come up with new legislation or a new schedule that incorporates some of the safeguards that the various submitters to the Senate inquiry and others have called for. It is quite concerning that it is considered extreme. It is certainly blunt but it is not unwarranted. So, based on the fact that my amendments on behalf of the Democrats have not been supported in this circumstance—nor, indeed, have the opposition’s amendments, which quite appropriately put forward the bipartisan view of the Senate inquiry recommendations—I have no qualms about supporting this amendment in relation to schedule 1.