Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Minister, I guess what I'm struggling with is that the government is telling us that you've had advice from one or more departments that they need this particular power. What I haven't heard is a reasonable excuse for these far-reaching powers. Notwithstanding that the government says they're only going to apply to a select group of individuals, these are far-reaching powers. They bypass the presumption of innocence. They bypass the rule of law. We have 112 or more legal academics and experts telling us that this is concerning. What I'm struggling to understand is why the government has sought to put this into this bill when it was entirely open to the government to lob up another bill with this schedule in it, which could have been sent off to a Senate inquiry. I don't accept the minister's assertion that briefings are a form of scrutiny; they are not. They are information sharing. It is not public, accountable scrutiny of legislation.

Why did the government choose to put these amendments into a bill that was already in the House when they could have bowled up a separate piece of legislation with this schedule in it and sent it off to a Senate inquiry for it to get the legitimate, public scrutiny that it deserves, which would have given legal experts and academics—the Law Council of Australia and others—the opportunity to put on the record their concerns about these powers, and which would have then given the government the opportunity to respond, rather than just telling us, 'Departments have told us they need it'? I'm sorry; this is a department that has unlawfully apportioned income over 30 years, that was responsible for robodebt, that has had to pause numerous cancellations because they've been found to be unlawful, and that is still suspending payments based on a targeted compliance framework that the minister and the department secretary cannot assure anyone is legal, and yet you are asking the Senate to trust you that, because people in the department have told you they need this, it doesn't have to be subject to the normal scrutiny that every other bit of legislation—and in fact, the remainder of this bill—has been.

So my question to you, Minister, is: why did the government not put this in a separate bill that would enable it to be subject to the proper scrutiny of the Senate process? Why did you choose to put it at the last minute in a bill already before the House?