Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I want to outline again that the government will not be supporting this motion. We do not agree that the bill should be discharged from the Notice Paper. For those senators that weren't in the chamber, the contribution made by my colleague Senator Ciccone, the chair of the committee that this bill is currently before, was very convincing about why this bill should not be discharged at this point, prior to the committee reporting and prior to the government being able to consider that report—the view of the committee—and being able to consider those recommendations that the committee might find. That includes perhaps a finding from the committee that the bill be discharged; I don't know. Senator Ciccone chaired a meeting yesterday. I don't know what that committee was deliberating on at that point, but there are opportunities to allow the committee to finish its work.

I've been in consultation with the minister responsible in the last half an hour, as I've been trying to understand the origins of this motion because there was no notice given about this motion being moved or the decision of others in this place to have this bill discharged from the Notice Paper. But the minister advises me that there has been consultation. Again, the committee might come back and say that there should be further consultation or that the tribunal should be able to provide a submission further to how the bill is drafted. I don't know. I don't know because the committee hasn't been in a position to report.

But I can say that, when we came to government, the Department of Veterans' Affairs was broken. To those opposite that sit there and lecture us: it was broken. The backlog was months. Veterans, the men and women who served this country with distinction, did not get the entitlements that were owed to them, because of the enormous backlog—because guess what? There were no staff in the department. The staff had been—

No, it's not a debate, Senator McKenzie.