Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research) Share this | Hansard source

The government is not able to support Senator Xenophon’s amendments. The safe harbour regime as proposed has been looked at by other bodies, including the Productivity Commission. The advice I have been given is that that proposal has been rejected on the grounds that it would actually add to the complexity, with limited benefit to be derived. The safe harbour regime as proposed would impose a higher resource burden on the regulator and would place the regulator in a position of determining unfairness, which is not appropriate because that is the job of the courts. The safe harbour decisions would be open to legal challenge but not add a useful protection to any business, and the regulator would find it very difficult to offer a comprehensive view on a single type of standard form contract in the many different circumstances in which such propositions tend to be used.