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

I'm happy to withdraw. I saw something different, but I'm happy to withdraw. We will not support the amendments that have been moved by Senator Allman-Payne. They are all of a similar type, which is seeking to change the amount of the payment as opposed to providing legal certainty for the payment, which is what this bill seeks to do.

It is important that we get this bill done, and I accept that we're not going to be able to do that this week. I'm hoping that we are going to be in a position to do it next week. These are some of the first pieces of work that we are pulling together to deal with those issues of legal noncompliance which Senator Allman-Payne identified in her earlier remarks. There are a number of them, and we will continue to bring those pieces of work to the chamber in an orderly way once the government has considered them and received the advice from relevant departments.

This bill is not the avenue for the Greens political party to pursue other goals or other policy ideas. This is about ensuring legal compliance around the ability to provide urgent payments. The advice government got on urgent payments is that we needed to respond in legislation to ensure that those people Senator Allman-Payne says she is concerned about, and whom the government is similarly concerned about, are able to lawfully be provided with those urgent payments when it is appropriate. This is a series of pieces of work that will come to this chamber to deal with that. We don't support the Greens amendment or the contribution from Senator Allman-Payne.