Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Hansard source

I will explain why I think the government should be supporting these amendments. This is a definition issue, and I am a little surprised that the government opposes these. If you look at the integrity of this process, these amendments, which seek to clarify and change the definition from ‘carrier’ to ‘eligible carrier’, make absolutely perfect sense: for only those who are involved in this process to be given the opportunity to participate in the details and the provisions of this particular bill. In my view, it would be totally unreasonable for carriers, in the widest sense, to have access to sensitive commercial information, which they could have quite simply by giving some indication that they were dealing themselves into the process. Were they to do that then they would have the opportunity to get access to that information. I think that for the integrity of the process, and to address and to firm up those matters that the minister is seeking to address in other parts of the government’s amendments and in the bill itself, this would be an entirely appropriate group of amendments to be accepted. I think that it would provide for those that I am sure the minister is hoping will be active participants in this process, to actually enable the tender process to have integrity and a large number of players. I would have thought that, considering the quickest way to ensure that they were active participants in this process and indeed that this matter would be dealt with expeditiously in line with the government’s own July deadline, you would want to maximise the confidence of those who will be legitimately tendering by indicating to them that the integrity of the process will be maximised, not undermined, by the definition of ‘carrier’ versus ‘eligible carrier’. I would encourage the government to review the decision to oppose this because I think it does actually support the integrity of their own bill.

Question agreed to.