Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Recoupment obviously is not something that small businesses want. Let us just go through recoupment. Recoupment means that you have to prove that it is the intention of the person who put you out of business, after he put you out of business, to recoup his losses. I can see abundant reasons why we do not want to put that provision in the bill. It has been left out for a deliberate reason, and I ask the minister about this. We are dealing with an interpretation of the court that put recoupment in. Recoupment was removed by the explanatory memorandum in the previous Trade Practices Act at the end of last year. For the Labor Party to now start talking about recoupment does nothing more than bring recoupment back in again.