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

The opposition opposes these amendments. I am mindful of the time that is left open to us. We oppose amendment (4) because we believe that our amendment (9) is far stronger, superior and comprehensively deals with the voluntary protected carrier information. We are probably dealing with a bit of them together.

Had the integrity of the process in relation to the voluntary information been included in the first place, we probably would not have needed this bill because that would, on its own, have provided the integrity of the process that the minister was trying to attain. That is why we have argued from day one that this bill was not necessary to the extent that the minister has himself required a legislative instrument to deal with something that we think could have been dealt with on a voluntary basis, which would have provided the information that his government wanted and the protection for the industry, which then would have willingly provided the information that would have been required by the government and the panel et cetera to make a rational and informed decision.

In some respects the government has almost, in a timing sense, fallen on its own sword. I do not want, as I say, to delay the process, but we do oppose government amendment (4). We do not think it goes far enough. We do not think it deals effectively with the effective use application sanction for misuse of information as our amendment (9) does.