Senate debates

Wednesday, 26 March 2014

Bills

Export Market Development Grants Amendment Bill 2014; In Committee

11:18 am

Photo of Nick XenophonNick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I would just like to make it clear that the Exports Consultants Group have brought this to my attention. They have given me a fair bit of information. They want the scheme to work. They say they are subject to criminal laws, like everyone else, so that, if someone is involved in a fraudulent grant or other behaviour that could easily be addressed within the criminal code, then these matters can be dealt with in that way.

I have been told that there is a 'not a fit and proper person' investigation, in relation to a 2009-10 application, which is now into its fourth year. I do not know whether the department can confirm that. I do not think that would breach any confidentiality. But the issue is that if the chief executive of Austrade says, 'We don't think you are a fit and proper person,' then in order to deal with that you have to make an application for judicial review in the Federal Court. These guys—and I say that generically; these people—just do not have the funds to do that, by and large. They do not have tens of thousands of dollars to do that. I am concerned as to how it will operate.

The guidelines say that Austrade must 'have regard to any matter that it considers relevant to the personal, commercial, financial or professional character, status or reputation of the person or associate'. What happens if you are a consultant, and you have a black sheep in the family who has been convicted of some serious offences, relating to fraud or organised crime, for instance? Does that mean you would be caught up in and be responsible for the sins of someone else in your family, or someone that you know, even though you have no commercial relationship with them—or no relationship at all with them? It has been put to me that what is being proposed here imposes an obligation which is unduly dependent on insufficiently defined administrative powers. That is my real concern.

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