Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Again, we will be opposing this amendment. It's passing strange that having just told us and lectured us on why we needed to make the Anti-Corruption Commission independent, Senator Shoebridge now wants to dictate to the commission what constitutes exceptional circumstances. As we have said all along, we think that the commission should be allowed to act independently without a government dictating to it what amounts to exceptional circumstances. We have full confidence in the commission being able to work that out by exercising their own discretion.