Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) | Hansard source

Minister, I understand that the political pragmatic reality of this place is that sometimes the government has to cut deals to get their legislation through here. But I urge you to consider sending this off to the committee to get this properly looked at, because I know it is going to be very difficult to administer these amendments. There are considerable uncertainties around whether the data even exists to carve out high-risk cohorts. More importantly, uncertainties exist about whether that is the right thing to be doing, considering that, according to your own benchmark, four-fifths of this cohort won't have default insurance. The royal commission into financial services has taught us all that Australians aren't financially literate. I bet there are plenty of senators in here who are not financially literate either and don't actually make those choices the way you might describe the perfect free market with perfect information. The biggest problem we face is getting people more active—you understand this yourself with your background—and getting people to spend more time thinking about these things and making those informed choices. We can't assume that this cohort are going to make an informed choice to opt in. History tells us that. It's an absolutely black-and-white fact that we need to consider.

Even assuming that young people do make the decision to opt in, I want to pull you up on your statement there that insurance is available to all this cohort. I did read into my speech on the second reading that we have received information that there is no guarantee that some of this cohort will have access to life insurance or permanent disability insurance outside their workplace. Insurance companies themselves have said that they will have to go through their underwriting processes. At the moment you have it. It is part of a safety net that was set up by your government, the Liberal government, years ago to protect vulnerable Australians. Can you assure the chamber today that there is a guarantee that young Australians who are excluded when the default system changes are actually going to get coverage when they apply to an insurance company? Can you guarantee that to the Senate here today? Because that is the current position: you are guaranteed a safety net right now. Are you going to be guaranteed that following this legislation today?