Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It is going to be interesting to see the opposition arguing for its own amendments, the many amendments that it will move in the next three years, if it is going to want the level of financial modelling that Senator Bernardi is calling for. Senator Siewert has pointed out that the Greens amendment is going to save much more money, through the delivery of services, than the alternatives—if the government is going to consider delivering those services. The fact is that there is a very clear and cogent argument here that this is the right thing to do. The end result is the delivery of services and the assurance of services that would be much more expensive if you were to look for alternatives.

If the opposition wants to vote this down it is doing the wrong thing by the community sector and by the people whose services are at stake here. If the opposition is going to argue in this place: ‘We’ll vote against this because we don’t know what we’re doing; we don’t have the fine assessment of the costs of doing this,’ it is going to find itself in difficulty bringing forward innovation to legislation over the next couple of years and it is going to find itself voting against much-needed innovation in the Senate. This is a meritorious amendment and it ought to be supported.