Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

As I stated in my second reading debate contribution on this bill last night, the coalition, three weeks ago now, had actually requested the government send this to the appropriate committee for scrutiny. While the government is selling it to the Australian people as merely modernisation, in my speech, and even in the speech that Senator Roberts has just given, I have assured the Australian people it is absolutely not that.

Unfortunately, this is a transfer of power directly from the parliament, where you have transparency, all the way over to the executive, where you have none. I would have thought for a government that likes to stand up and tell the Australian people just how committed to transparency it is, it would have actually agreed to this bill being subject to a committee inquiry. It didn't. Ironically, three weeks later, we are now here. And because we were unable to have a committee inquiry, I will now have to pursue it through the committee process.

In the first instance, Minister, is it correct that under the bill the responsible minister may issue written performance standards to certain statutory office holders, and that those standards may then form the basis for a finding of unsatisfactory performance leading to termination?