Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—

The Greens oppose schedule 1 in the following terms:

(2)    Schedule 1, items 2 to 4, page 3 (lines 22 to 28), TO BE OPPOSED.

(5)    Schedule 1, item 8, page 4 (lines 20 to 29), TO BE OPPOSED.

(6)    Schedule 1, item 10, page 4 (lines 32) to page 5 (line 9), TO BE OPPOSED.

(9)    Schedule 1, items 17 and 18, page 5 (line 27) to page 6 (line 20), TO BE OPPOSED.

(14)  Schedule 1, item 25, page 7 (lines 11 to 22), TO BE OPPOSED.

(17)  Schedule 1, item 33, page 8 (lines 12 to 23), TO BE OPPOSED.

The Greens’ opposition to these items relates to the minister making ministerial guidelines by legislative instrument. I went through the substantive reasons for this in my speech during the second reading debate. We have deep concerns because these highly complex assessments do not lend themselves to such prescriptive and rigid guidelines. We also believe that they need to be subject to public scrutiny. We believe that this is not an appropriate mechanism to achieve what the government is trying to achieve.

I will just add, while I am on my feet, that I heard the argument of the ALP. We do not accept their argument necessarily, either. We believe that this is a rather clumsy way of dealing with these issues. We are deeply concerned about the power being put into the minister’s hands in relation to these matters and about how that affects the discretion of job capacity assessments and appeals following the process. We believe these amendments are inappropriate. That is why we are seeking to have them removed.