David Feeney (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

I guess that the first point the government would make here is that the offences of which you speak and which are created by this bill are delayed for two years, and that these are, again, matters that the steering group will have an opportunity to look to. I guess that I would repeat the fact that obviously it is a decision that the minister would not make lightly.

I guess that there have been recent decisions of government that are perhaps analogous; they did have important commercial implications for parties, obviously, but they were made by a government that was dealing with issues of enormous sensitivity. So I do not think that this is unprecedented, and obviously it is a power that would either be exerted responsibly or the government of the day would suffer the implications of treating it otherwise.