Senator HUME (Victoria—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (09:31): I report to the Senate in accordance with yesterday's Senate order 1322, moved by Senator Patrick, regarding Senate order 1108, order for the production of documents to the Senate Economics Legislation Committee. As the chair of that committee, I report that the committee has not received any documents pursuant to the order from the Commissioner of Taxation. I further note that a letter from the Leader of the Government in the Senate to the Senate President, copied to me as Chair of the Economics Legislation Committee and to Senator Patrick, has advised that the Commissioner of Taxation has undertaken to provide the documents sought in the order to the committee by 21 December 2018, on the basis that the committee treats the documents and information in question as confidential. The commissioner has also agreed to appear before the committee to provide in camera evidence in relation to the information.

Senator PATRICK (South Australia) (09:32): I seek leave to make a one-minute statement.

Leave granted.

Senator PATRICK: I think that's a really good outcome and I'm grateful that the tax commissioner has reconsidered his position. I just point out to the Senate that this is a good day from an oversight perspective. We cannot have officials not obeying orders of the Senate. Once again, I think this is a very good outcome. Thank you.

Senator HUME (Victoria—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (09:33): I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enhancing Whistleblower Protections) Bill 2017. As I mentioned earlier, Australia's current private sector whistleblower laws are fragmented and confusing, and civil remedies are extraordinarily limited. At the moment, claimants are exposed to legal cost risks and have great difficulty in discharging the evidential burden in proceedings for compensation in relation to reprisals. Offences that have been committed against whistleblowers have rarely been prosecuted. Companies have been practically prohibited from undertaking investigations as they could not share information related to the disclosure, regardless of whether it identified the whistleblower or it did not. In fact, anonymous disclosures were not allowed, and neither were emergency disclosures, either to the media or to parliamentarians.

The changes that we've made with this bill remedy those deficiencies. There are a number of protections that are strengthened by this bill. The changes include expanding the protections to a much broader class of people. They expand the types of disclosures that will be protected under the framework; they allow emergency disclosures to parliamentarians and the media in certain circumstances, but only if certain preconditions are satisfied; and they make it easier for a whistleblower to seek redress for detriment or for damage. The new protections create new civil penalties to make enforcement action easier and increase criminal penalties. They also require all large companies to have a whistleblower policy, with penalties for failing to do so.

There are also new whistleblower protections in the taxation law, which are broadly consistent with those changes already outlined in the Corporations Act. The key difference between the corporate and tax whistleblower regimes are that all types of entities, including individuals, bodies of persons, partnerships and trusts are covered by the tax regime. Also, eligible recipients under the tax regime differ from the corporate tax regime due to the nature of the information that is being disclosed—for example, tax and BAS agents of entities are eligible recipients under the tax regime—and the tax regime does not contain equivalent provisions to the corporate regime relating to emergency and public interest disclosures. Also, the tax regime doesn't explicitly exclude personal work related grievances from protection because the scope of the tax whistleblower regime is already limited to disclosures about tax affairs. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Senator PATRICK (South Australia) (09:36): I wish to speak in support of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enhancing Whistleblower Protections) Bill 2017. This bill and the associated amendments that have been circulated represent a significant leap forward in protecting whistleblowers in Australia and set a world benchmark in many areas. While there may be some room for improvement, we should, as a parliament, pass this bill and pass it without delay. In doing so, we would recognise the enormous amount of work that has gone into it over the past two years. Importantly, passing the bill now will give corporate Australia food for thought over the holiday period as to how to implement the bill's whistleblower protection provisions in its workplaces in the coming year. It will also give Australians confidence that, with the help of conscientious employees, the type of disgraceful conduct that we've seen in the corporate sector, which has been flushed out by the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry, will become a thing of the past.

I shall speak more about the royal commission in a moment, but let me just say now that the evidence given by the NAB chair, Ken Henry, at the commission last week illustrates what we are up against and why this bill is so important. In an appearance widely condemned by commentators and both mainstream and social media, Dr Henry told the commission that the reforms of the financial sector might take up a to decade to implement. He also stated that the main function of a board is to maximise profits for the company. Clearly, at the NAB board level, when it comes to consuming food for thought, there is little appetite for change.

If passed today, this bill will empower employees in corporations to call out unethical behaviour in their workplaces without fear of repercussion. This bill is part of a process that will, in due course, make Australia the world leader in whistleblower protection in the public, corporate, not-for-profit and union sectors. It's something the parliament has been working on for several years, starting with the rather weak provisions in the Public Service Act. This was followed by a move to a more substantive but still wanting Public Interest Disclosure Act, the PID Act, in 2013. The intention of the PID Act was to encourage officials to report suspected wrongdoing in the Australian public sector, and it gave whistleblowers protection against reprisal action. The government began work on similar provisions for the private sector in mid-2016. It was a commendable step, in both instances, although in both instances the provisions did not equate to world's best practice.

Similar protections were also legislated in the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Amendment Act, which was passed in November 2016. These protections were added as an amendment by my predecessor, former senator Nick Xenophon. In his speech on the second reading, former Senator Xenophon noted an undertaking by the government to support a parliamentary inquiry into implementing the same level of protection across the corporate and public sectors. In September 2017, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services published a unanimous report on whistleblower protections in the corporate, public and not-for-profit sectors. The drafting of this particular bill and the consultation on it were already underway when that report was published.

Whilst the government hasn't yet responded to the parliamentary joint committee report, this bill addresses some 32 of the 35 recommendations. Senator Hume alluded to some of the areas where we still need to do some further work. The three substantive recommendations are not addressed in this bill, as was pointed out, including having a single private sector act, introducing a rewards scheme for whistleblowers and establishing an independent whistleblower protection authority. However, as I stated at the onset, parliament can deal with those matters in due course.

One of my first duties as a senator was to be a participating member of the Senate Economics Legislation Committee inquiry into this bill in February. At its conclusion, I submitted a dissenting report that contained 12 recommendations. They were recommendations that the Centre Alliance felt were necessary to fulfil an agreement Senator Xenophon made with the government in 2016 to pass the registered organisations bill. In the course of this year, I met with government ministers on numerous occasions to discuss our position on its corporate tax and whistleblower protection reforms. At this point, I'd like to acknowledge Professor AJ Brown, who has been most helpful in an informal fashion in my office. He was in the gallery yesterday but is not here this morning. It's evident from the meetings I had and from the ongoing engagement we had in relation to this issue that the government and Centre Alliance were both committed to improving the protections afforded to whistleblowers, who provide an invaluable service to society, often at a great personal cost. It's critically important to me, as I know it is to the government and all of us in this chamber, that we get the whistleblower protection framework correct. We need to ensure that a strong deterrent against wrongdoing exists. We also need to ensure that, if deterrent fails, more whistleblowers will be encouraged to come forward to expose wrongdoing and that they are protected when doing so. While not all of my suggestions have been adopted, Centre Alliance is sufficiently satisfied with these amendments. I'd call it a nine out of 10, but in the nine the government actually gave a bit more than we perhaps asked for, so, overall, I must thank the government for working with us on that.

The amendments include the adoption of the first two recommendations in the Senate Economics Legislation Committee report. The first of those was to require that the minister cause a review to be undertaken of the operation of the whistleblower laws, as soon as practical, five years after the amendments commence, and that the minister must table a report on the review outcomes in the parliament. The second was to amend the definition of 'journalist' to make it clear that public broadcasters are not excluded from the legislation.

The result of my specific negotiations with the government has achieved the following outcomes. Firstly, the definition of an 'eligible recipient' in the bill has been amended so that it's limited to senior managers rather than supervisors and managers. That basically removes some burden on companies to have everyone completely trained in the provisions. The explanatory memorandum has been amended to ensure that whistleblowers are able to make disclosures to an internal auditor. Individual personnel, employment or workplace grievances are now specifically not protected under this act unless they are a grievance raised under the civil remedy or victimisation provisions under this bill. We don't want to have people using whistleblower protections to raise what are effectively workplace issues. The existing emergency disclosure provisions have been amended to create a new public interest disclosure provision. This will be done using the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 test, the PID Act test, as a reference point and adapting that to the corporate context. That is, there will be a public interest limb and an emergency limb.

The proposed amendments will remove the requirement to wait a reasonable time under the emergency limb, but it will remain in the public interest limb. This is consistent with the PID Act, which refers to the time limit for investigations of a disclosure for the public interest limb only. The main difference in the proposed amendments is that the PID Act is under the emergency limb. A discloser will need to have first made the disclosure to a regulator and will need to notify the regulator prior to making an emergency disclosure, and there is no need to wait a reasonable time. The PID Act allows for emergency disclosures to be made without first making the disclosure internally in exceptional circumstances. The definition of 'reasonable time' for emergency disclosures will be defined in the bill as a fixed 90-day period rather than a reasonable period. ASIC and APRA have both been consulted on this.

Information that may be disclosed under an emergency disclosure has been amended so that it is consistent with the PID Act. This includes a requirement that the extent of the information disclosed in the emergency disclosure is no greater than is necessary to inform the recipient of the danger. A similar limitation will apply to public interest disclosures so that only so much information is disclosed as is necessary to inform the recipient of the relevant misconduct or the improper state of affairs.

The belief or suspicion requirement in the bill has been amended so it does not hinge on state of mind. The burden of proof section makes it clearer that the claimant only needs to prove that detriment was suffered, not the state of mind of the defendant. The tax regime will also mirror this amendment. The term 'victimising conduct' has been replaced with 'detrimental conduct'. This amendment will also be mirrored in the tax regime.

A new subsection in both the corporate and tax regimes has been created that provides an avenue for whistleblowers to claim compensation or other remedies on the basis that they have suffered detriment because the company breached a duty to them. The explanatory memorandum has been amended to provide for circumstances in which a court may make an order for compensation. The bill has been amended to clarify the considerations a court may take into account when awarding compensation, and, finally, the explanatory memorandum has been amended to clarify the factors that may be considered when a court is determining whether a claim can be made.

I am wholeheartedly convinced that the bill before us will usher in a new era of accountability in Australia's corporate sector. For evidence of this, we need look no further than the experience of the Commonwealth Bank whistleblower Jeff Morris. Mr Morris studied economics and law at the University of Sydney and is a certified financial planner. He has had nearly 30 years experience working in financial services, including as a tax manager at NatWest Bank and Deloitte & Touche chartered accountants, as a financial consultant with the firm Towers Perrin, and as vice president of investment bank Bankers Trust Australia. In 2008, Mr Morris joined Commonwealth Financial Planning and soon became concerned about the severe losses and emotional distress being suffered by many elderly and vulnerable clients due to the poor advice they had received. In October of that year he blew the whistle to the corporate regulator ASIC in relation to the financial planner Don Nguyen and Commonwealth Financial Planning.

In June 2013, Mr Morris again blew the whistle on ASIC itself, which for 16 months had failed to act on facts sent by whistleblowers. As many here know, this led to a Senate inquiry into ASIC by the economics references committee that same year. Among the committee's final recommendations were that an independent inquiry be held 'possibly in the form of a judicial inquiry or royal commission', principally to:

… examine the actions of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia (CBA) in relation to the misconduct of advisers and planners within the CBA's financial planning businesses and the allegations of a cover up.

It was also a recommendation that such an inquiry:

… make recommendations about ASIC and any regulatory or legislative reforms that may be required.

If we fast forward to today, it's fair to say that Mr Morris's actions as a whistleblower provided much of the momentum for this year's Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry. The evidence heard at the royal commission has shocked and outraged Australians. I refer to forged documents, bribery, loans to customers without verifying their living expenses, selling insurance to people who couldn't afford it, lying to regulators and charging fees to clients who had died. These are just a few of the revelations from the royal commission which, for many years in this parliament, it was claimed we didn't need to have. Commissioner Hayne's damning interim report in September also took issue with the performance of ASIC. In the executive summary, the royal commissioner wrote:

Much more often than not, when misconduct was revealed, little happened beyond apology from the entity, a drawn out remediation program and protracted negotiation with ASIC of a media release, an infringement notice, or an enforceable undertaking that acknowledged no more than that ASIC had reasonable 'concerns' about the entity's conduct. Infringement notices imposed penalties that were immaterial for the large banks. Enforceable undertakings might require a 'community benefit payment', but the amount was far less than the penalty that ASIC could properly have asked a court to impose.

The whole of Australia eagerly awaits Commissioner Hayne's final report and his recommendations—perhaps with the exception of Dr Henry and those of his ilk. And I contend that, without whistleblowers like Mr Morris and, of course, Ms O'Dowd, who is in the gallery here now, it is less likely that there would have ever been a royal commission.

This bill ultimately recognises the importance of whistleblowers like Mr Morris and what they can do to make Australia a fairer and better place. It puts the corporate sector on notice that whistleblowers with courage and integrity now have a raft of protections to support them in calling out skulduggery in high places. It also serves as a portent to any unethical practitioners in the public sector, the not-for-profit sector and the trade union movement that they are next, as Australia strives to rid itself of corruption from the inside out.

Before I conclude, I'd like to acknowledge the work of former Senator Xenophon; Mr Steve Irons MP and the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services; the Hon. Kelly O'Dwyer MP, who had primary carriage of the negotiations; the Hon. Stuart Robert, who has assisted in finalising the amendments; and last but not least, as I said before, Professor AJ Brown. This bill does represent a team effort, and we should be proud of what we have achieved.

This is the culmination of great work by the Senate, from Senate inquiries through to the joint parliamentary inquiries, to difficult and tough negotiations that I had with Minister O'Dwyer. And I might say: those negotiations were tough. There were times when I was summoned to her office; there were times when I ignored her phone calls—all the normal stuff we do in negotiations in the back rooms of this building. But you know what? We got to a really good ending. And, once again, I thank Minister O'Dwyer for her efforts. We've actually come up with a really good piece of legislation. It's not perfect, but it will have an enduring effect on corporate Australia and the ethical conduct of those businesses, and I commend it to the Senate.

Senator DUNIAM (Tasmania) (09:53): I, too, am pleased to make a contribution to the second reading debate on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enhancing Whistleblower Protections) Bill 2017. And while he's still here, I acknowledge the contribution of Senator Patrick, not just to this debate but to the whole process. It's pleasing to hear that it's not just my phone calls you ignore, but also ministers' as well! But it is an important piece of legislation. As Senator Patrick and other contributors—Senator Hume, as well—outlined, it has been a long road for those who have been a part of this process to get to this point.

Turning to the key provisions of the bill before going through a bit of the background and some of the reasons why: in broad terms, it is important to provide these protections as whistleblowing is a big part of public debate in Australian politics. As I heard Senator Hume mention just before about the current landscape with regard to protections available to whistleblowers and the laws relating to how they're dealt with, the two words that come to mind are 'fragmented' and 'confusing'. They're difficult to navigate, and, as a result, the protections available are lacking, are ineffective and, therefore, act as a deterrent to those who might otherwise out the conduct we've been referring to here. Senator Patrick mentioned the royal commission into the banking sector—a very good example of why we should have in place mechanisms for the private sector when it comes to making sure people are held to account while also acting within the confines of the law.

The bill before us in effect introduces new protections into two separate acts. Firstly, the Corporations Act 2001 will be amended to create a single, strengthened whistleblower protection regime that covers the corporate and financial credit sectors. Secondly, the Taxation Administration Act 1953 will be amended to add new protections to tax whistleblowers who report tax misconduct. These are two very important areas that I'm pleased to see are going to be addressed as part of this legislation.

Part 1 of the bill strengthens protections for corporate whistleblowers by expanding the protections to a broader class of persons. It also expands the list of disclosures that can be protected. It extends the protections to cover third-party disclosures in certain circumstances and provides greater protection of whistleblower confidentiality, which is incredibly important. We've seen situations where that certainly hasn't been the case. It improves access to compensation for whistleblowers because ultimately, as we've seen, there is a cost associated with undertaking the act of a whistleblower. It is creating a new penalty offence so that law enforcement agencies will be better able to take enforcement action and it introduces a whistleblower policy requirement for all large companies.

The bill also amalgamates the protections contained in several acts into the Corporations Act, in effect creating a bit of a one-stop shop. The consolidation covers the following acts: the ASIC Act 2001, the Banking Act 1959, the Insurance Act 1973, the Life Insurance Act 1995, the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993, as well as adding protections for conduct that contravenes the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 and the Financial Services (Collection of Data) Act 2001, which were not covered under the existing law.

The second part of the bill introduces new protections for those tax whistleblowers in the Taxation Administration Act 1953, which are broadly consistent with the enhanced protections under the Corporations Act, so we have a consistent approach there, and will facilitate disclosures about tax misconduct. As others have said, it does strike the right balance between ensuring and encouraging genuine whistleblowers do come forward while also removing the protections for vexatious complaints, which I heard Senator Patrick talking about in his contribution. We will make sure people don't use these mechanisms to raise, in effect, vexatious complaints and do damage that they should otherwise not be doing.

I'll just go to the background, the road to where we are today with regard to this piece of legislation and the much needed protections that they do now bring into place. Obviously, anyone who has followed the whistleblower public debate understands that it is described as a public good. People who blow the whistle on misconduct, on corrupt behaviour, are performing an essential function in the community, so therefore they are deserving of protection. There have been a number of pieces of work undertaken by parliamentary committees. A quick glance has shown that we had the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services table their report, Whistleblower protections, which I'll come to shortly, about the importance of whistleblowers; the Senate Standing Committee on Economics with its final report on the performance of the Australian Securities and Investments Commission; Treasury's review of tax and corporate whistleblower protections in Australia; the Moss review, which reviewed the Public Interest Disclosure Act in 2013; and the Brown and Lawrence report on the strength of organisational whistleblowing processes, just to name but a few. I can come back a little later to some of the work that was done in those reports.

Turning first to the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Finance Services and their Whistleblower protections report of September last year, chapter 2 provides some context to this whole issue. It goes into the issue of why whistleblowing is important in the Australian political and financial landscape. The report says:

The key arguments for establishing effective whistleblower protections are essentially based on a view put by numerous submitters and witnesses that whistleblowing was critical in fostering a culture of transparency, accountability, and integrity.

It goes on to cite an example provided by Ms Serene Lillywhite, who, at that time, was the CEO of the organisation Transparency International. She indicated in her submission to the inquiry that:

whistleblower protection is integral to fostering transparency, promoting integrity and detecting misconduct.

Further:

protecting whistleblowers promotes a culture of accountability and integrity in both the public and private institutions; and

whistleblowing empowers citizens against corruption and encourages the reporting of misconduct, fraud and corruption.

Another submitter, Mr Jordan Thomas, in his submission to the same inquiry pointed out:

… that whistleblowers perform a vital service to both markets and organisations because:

they force us to focus on our failings;

they challenge our ideals; and

they show the limits of law enforcement authorities, self-regulatory organisations, and corporate compliance programs.

Indeed, some of those I will look to a little later in the debate.

Further evidence in that particular inquiry, from the Australian Federal Police—which is interesting to take the point of view of a law enforcement agency and how they deal with these issues:

… informed the committee that whistleblowers are important in detecting serious financial crime that is often sophisticated, well concealed, and part of a culture of cover-up.

Again, this is referring to the banking royal commission. The misconduct that has been talked about, the shocking findings, the terrible actions that were perpetrated by many have been uncovered there, which is in line with what the AFP are saying with regard to their submission to this particular inquiry. The AFP noted:

… that due to the complex nature of serious financial crime there is often a low risk of discovery by regulators and law enforcement unless whistleblowers are supported in coming forward. The sorts of matters where whistleblowers may inform investigations include foreign bribery, serious tax crime, identity crime, corporate and government corruption matters and serious fraud offences.

The AFP went on to argue that:

If people are discouraged from coming forward to regulators or law enforcement due to lack of protections for their safety, protection from legal action and the personal and financial impacts of disclosing company information, there may be no case to prosecute. Where people do come forward, but are not willing to give evidence, due to lack of protection for anonymity, law enforcement may not have sufficient evidence to prosecute. This may not be fixed solely by enhancing protections as court procedures can only go so far in protecting witness identity.

Whether or not improved whistleblower protections would encourage people to come forward and disclose wrongdoing would depend on how the system is framed, and whether the public has the confidence that the system can ensure any protections.

Of course, another submitter said:

The Governance Institute of Australia … argued that whistleblowing has a critical role to play in identifying and stopping misconduct in the corporate sector, but it is only one aspect of companies' overall programs to ensure compliance with regulation and to prevent and detect misconduct …

Obviously, it is an issue that these submitters, those people who participated in that inquiry and provided evidence, agree should not be taken lightly; therefore, work needs to be put in, and that's why this legislation is critically important.

The current landscape, as has been discussed, is fragmented and confusing, which is why we saw the need to reform it and why submissions were made to various inquiries, including the Senate Economics Legislation Committee inquiry into this particular piece of legislation. Currently in Australia we have protections under three main pieces of legislation. There are state and territory protections as well, of course, and I'll turn to the Tasmanian laws shortly. Federally, as has already been referred to in this debate, we have the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013, the PID Act; the Corporations Act; and the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009. The PID Act has application across the Commonwealth Public Service, statutory agencies and other Commonwealth authorities, the Defence Force and contracted service providers for Commonwealth contracts. It applies, in the main, to disclosures made within government—that is, disclosures to 'authorised internal recipients'. In this situation, whistleblowers can disclose directly to their supervisors as well as to the authorised internal recipient of the relevant agency, which is prescribed in the legislation and set out in whatever arrangements apply to the relevant agency. The authorised recipient can include the Commonwealth Ombudsman if it's considered appropriate. Of course, circumstances would vary from agency to agency.

In addition to internal disclosure, it's possible to make a disclosure externally, such as to the media or to a member of parliament, providing certain conditions are met. Whistleblowers, under this legislation, are protected if they go public believing on reasonable grounds that an investigation into the internal disclosure was inadequate and if wider disclosure satisfies public interest requirements, which, of course, are set out in the legislation.

Turning to protections under the act, should an individual make a public interest disclosure as defined under the act, there will be protection for that individual from any civil, criminal or administrative liability, and no contractual or other remedy or right may be enforced or exercised against the individual on the basis of that disclosure. Conduct is disclosable if it falls within the broad concept of wrongdoing in the public sector. Disclosable conduct includes conduct which unreasonably results in danger to the health or safety of one or more persons; unreasonably results in, or increases a risk of, danger to the health of one or more persons; contravenes Australian law; constitutes maladministration; or involves a waste of government money. That, of course, is something we should all be avoiding. As has been mentioned already, the Moss review investigated the effectiveness of public interest disclosure legislation and highlighted that it had only been partially successful for a number of reasons.

Turning to current protections federally with regard to the private sector, we've got the Corporations Act 2001. Current protections for whistleblower disclosures in the corporate sector are contained in part 9.4AAA of that act, which was introduced as part of a suite of reforms in 2004. We've also got protections for public interest disclosures concerning misconduct or an improper state of affairs or circumstances affecting the institutions supervised by the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority, APRA, in the following acts: the Banking Act, the Insurance Act, the Life Insurance Act and the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act—those pieces of legislation that I said earlier on were being consolidated under one piece of legislation. I also mentioned the Fair Work (Registered Organisations) Act 2009. In 2016 this parliament passed amendments to that act, strengthening whistleblower protections for people who report on corruption or misconduct in unions and employer organisations. The amendments were part of an agreement negotiated by the government with the Senate crossbench to establish the new Registered Organisations Commission and strengthen the governance of trade unions.

That is a bit of a snapshot of the lie of the land federally. As has been pointed out by a number of reviews, including the Senate inquiry which finally led to this piece of legislation we have before us, there were improvements to be made, and so here we are making them.

I will turn now to Tasmania, where the issue of whistleblowing is very regularly talked about in the public debate. We have a number of local identities who have spent a lot of time advocating for changes to whistleblower laws and increased protections. In Tassie we have the Public Interest Disclosures Act 2002. The purpose of that act is to encourage and facilitate the making of disclosures of improper conduct by public officers or public bodies; to protect persons who make such disclosures, and others, from reprisals; to provide for the matters which are disclosed to be properly investigated and dealt with; and to provide all parties involved in such disclosures with natural justice.

Disclosures about improper conduct can be made to the Integrity Commission of Tasmania, to the Ombudsman or directly to the relevant agency. Of course, we do have an Integrity Commission, which was set up five or six years ago and is the entity which deals with the majority of public sector related claims of misconduct. We've seen some very interesting findings from that body over recent times. It does have a great range of powers at its disposal to deal with the problems that have been raised by those making the complaint. It's good to see entities like that operating effectively. In some cases the act in Tasmania requires that certain disclosures can be made directly to the Ombudsman—for example, if it's a complaint relating to Tasmania Police. A disclosure about the commissioner for police could be made to the Ombudsman. Generally, though, disclosures about improper conduct are made to the Integrity Commission.

An act of improper conduct, under the Tasmanian legislation, has a very similar definition to that in the federal laws we are talking about here. But, again, the findings of the royal commission and the awful things that we've heard about in the public debate prove the point as to why this legislation is so critically important and why we need to do the best we can by those in our community, particularly in the private sector, who are willing to stand up and speak out against acts of misconduct and corruption. Providing them with protections, a better mechanism, a more straightforward and streamlined approach to the laws relating to whistleblowing, is an excellent thing to be doing, and it is pleasing to be speaking on this legislation here at the end of the parliamentary year. Like Senator Patrick and Senator Hume, I commend this bill to the Senate and thank those senators who've had a huge hand in putting it together—in particular, Senator Patrick—for their work on this. I commend the bill to the Senate.

Senator SESELJA (Australian Capital Territory—Assistant Minister for Treasury and Finance) (10:13): It's good to follow my good friend Senator Duniam. I join with him in thanking all of those senators who have played a part in bringing us to this point where we will be passing a very important piece of legislation, the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enhancing Whistleblower Protections) Bill 2017. This bill amends the Corporations Act 2001 and the Taxation Administration Act 1953 to strengthen Australia's corporate and tax whistleblower protections. Corporate crime is estimated to cost Australia more than $8.5 billion a year and account for approximately 40 per cent of the total cost of crime in Australia. Whistleblowing plays a critical role in uncovering this criminal activity as well as misconduct. It may also improve poor compliance cultures by ensuring that companies, officers and staff know the risk of misconduct being reported is far higher. Strengthening protections to allow whistleblowers to come forward will assist regulators to receive information earlier, to investigate contraventions, to take appropriate enforcement action, to limit the risk of loss to investors, and to ensure trust and confidence in the integrity of the corporate and financial system.

However, whilst legislative protections have formed part of the Corporations Act since 2004, they have been used sparingly and are increasingly perceived as being inadequate given recent advances in whistleblower protections in the public sector and overseas. Independent reviews of corporate sector whistleblowing provisions in Australia have found that they lag those of the public sector and those of comparable overseas jurisdictions. There was an independent evaluation of G20 countries' whistleblowing laws which was undertaken in 2014, and a separate assessment of those same laws was undertaken by the Senate Economics References Committee as part of its 2014 inquiry into the performance of ASIC. They both found that the current corporate whistleblower protections are overly narrow and make it unnecessarily difficult for those with information to qualify for protections.

The committee made a number of recommendations. It recommended a comprehensive review of Australia's corporate whistleblower framework, which would bring it closer to Australia's public sector whistleblower framework under the Public Interest Disclosure Act. To remedy these inadequacies, the government committed, in December 2016, as part of the Open Government National Action Plan, to ensuring appropriate protections are in place for people who report corruption, fraud, tax evasion or avoidance, and misconduct within the corporate sector. In order to achieve this, the government committed to improve whistleblower protections for people who disclose information about tax misconduct to the ATO. It also committed to pursuing reforms to whistleblower protections in other parts of the corporate sector, with consultation on options to strengthen and harmonise these protections with those in the public sector available under the Public Interest Disclosure Act.

Further, there are no specific protections for tax whistleblowers, and the range of secrecy and privacy provisions relied upon are incapable of guaranteeing absolute protection. That is why the government announced, in December 2016, as part of the Open Government National Action Plan, that it would ensure appropriate protections are in place for people who report corruption, fraud, tax evasion or avoidance and misconduct within the corporate sector. To be very specific, the government committed to introducing whistleblower protections for people who disclose information about tax misconduct to the Australian Taxation Office and strengthening and harmonising corporate whistleblower protections with those available in the public sector.

The commitment in the Open Government National Action Plan also reaffirmed the very important 2016-17 budget announcement made by the Liberal-National government that it would introduce new arrangements to better protect individuals who disclose information to the Australian Taxation Office on tax avoidance behaviour and other issues and to further strengthen the integrity of Australia's tax system. I'm very pleased to say that the bill that we are debating today in the Senate delivers on those commitments. Given the lack of protections for tax whistleblowers and the need to strengthen protections for other whistleblowers in the corporate sector, the government is progressing these reforms in parallel, including introducing them as part of the same legislation. This will ensure consistency in protections where it makes sense to do so.

Part 1 of this bill will strengthen protections for corporate whistleblowers by expanding protections to a broader class of persons. It will expand disclosures that can be protected. It will extend protections to cover emergency and public interest disclosures, subject to preconditions and excluding from protection disclosures of purely personal work related grievances. It will also improve civil remedies for whistleblowers, creating new civil penalties to make enforcement action easier and introducing a whistleblower policy requirement for all large companies. The bill amalgamates these protections from several acts into the Corporation Act, which is a good piece of consolidation. The consolidation will cover the Corporations Act, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission Act 2001, the Banking Act 1959, the Insurance Act 1973, the Life Insurance Act 1995 and the Superannuation Industry (Supervision) Act 1993. As well as this, it will add protections for conduct that contravenes the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 and the Financial Sector (Collection of Data) Act 2001, which are not covered under the existing law. It's a significant consolidation across a range of Commonwealth legislation. Part 2 of this bill will introduce new protections for tax whistleblowers under the taxation law. These protections are broadly consistent with the enhanced protections under the Corporations Act and will facilitate disclosures about tax misconduct.

Together, these reforms will help to protect whistleblowers who may, in some circumstances, expose themselves to significant personal and financial risk in return for their critical role in the early detection and prosecution of misconduct in businesses and the avoidance or evasion of tax liabilities. Benefits will also be derived by the Australian business community, as we believe the reforms will encourage improved corporate governance and integrity, through the whistleblower policy prescription for large companies, and increase the likelihood of misconduct being reported. It will lead, hopefully, to better standards and better governance.

The measures contained in this bill have been extensively consulted upon and have the very strong support of a number of peak industry bodies and regulators, including ASIC, the Australian Taxation Office and the Australian Federal Police. The government welcomes the further consideration of the adequacy of the government's legislative, institutional and policy framework for addressing whistleblower protections by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services and the good work that was done by that committee in its inquiry into whistleblower protections in the corporate, public and not-for-profit sectors.

The Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services report, Whistleblower protections, which was tabled in the parliament on 13 September 2017, with a corrigendum tabled on 14 September 2017, made 35 recommendations. The Australian government acknowledges the committee's observation that effective whistleblower protection frameworks foster integrity and accountability while deterring and exposing misconduct, fraud and corruption.

The government is committed to strengthening the whistleblower frameworks for the public, corporate and tax sectors and welcomes evidence based discussion of opportunities to enhance whistleblower protections and effective handling of allegations of wrongdoing at the Commonwealth level. This bill addresses many of the recommendations made in this report. The government is considering the remaining recommendations of this report and will respond to all recommendations in due course.

I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the support and dedication of Senator Rex Patrick, who has—as Senator Duniam pointed out in his contribution—worked very closely with the government to bring about several of the government amendments to the bill. It's evident that Senator Patrick is aligned with the government's commitment to improve the protections available to whistleblowers, who provide an invaluable service to the wider community.

In summary, we believe that this is a very important reform. It's a long overdue reform. It will involve significant consolidation of a number of pieces of legislation. We think it will improve the ability of whistleblowers to blow the whistle on misconduct and fraud. I want to thank those who have contributed to the bill and I want to thank those who have contributed to this debate. I commend this bill to the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Senator SESELJA (Australian Capital Territory—Assistant Minister for Treasury and Finance) (10:27): I table a supplementary explanatory memorandum relating to the government amendments to be moved to this bill, and I seek leave to move amendments (1), (6) and (8) to (58) on sheet GP170 together.

Leave granted.

Senator SESELJA: I move:

That:

(1) Clause 2, page 2 (table item 2), omit the table item, substitute:

2. Schedule 1, Parts 1, 2 and 3

The first 1 January, 1 April, 1 July or 1 October to occur after the end of the period of 3 months beginning on the day this Act receives the Royal Assent.

3. Schedule 1, Part 4

The later of:

(a) immediately after the commencement of the provisions covered by table item 2; and

(b) immediately after the commencement of Schedule 1 to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Corporate and Financial Sector Penalties) Act 2018.

However, the provisions do not commence at all if the event mentioned in paragraph (b) does not occur.

(6) Schedule 1, item 2, page 9 (after line 3), after section 1317AAD, insert:

1317AADA Personal work ‑related grievances

(1) Subsections 1317AA(1) and (2) do not apply to a disclosure of information by an individual (the discloser) to the extent that the information disclosed:

(a) concerns a personal work‑related grievance of the discloser; and

(b) does not concern a contravention, or an alleged contravention, of section 1317AC that involves detriment caused to the discloser or a threat made to the discloser.

Note: A disclosure concerning a personal work‑related grievance that is made to a legal practitioner may qualify for protection under this Part under subsection 1317AA(3).

(2) For the purposes of subsection (1), the information disclosed concerns a personal work‑related grievance of the discloser if:

(a) the information concerns a grievance about any matter in relation to the discloser's employment, or former employment, having (or tending to have) implications for the discloser personally; and

(b) the information:

(i) does not have significant implications for the regulated entity to which it relates, or another regulated entity, that do not relate to the discloser; and

(ii) does not concern conduct, or alleged conduct, referred to in paragraph 1317AA(5)(c), (d), (e) or (f).

Examples of grievances that may be personal work‑related grievances under paragraph (a) (but subject to paragraph (b)) are as follows:

(a) an interpersonal conflict between the discloser and another employee;

(b) a decision relating to the engagement, transfer or promotion of the discloser;

(c) a decision relating to the terms and conditions of engagement of the discloser;

(d) a decision to suspend or terminate the engagement of the discloser, or otherwise to discipline the discloser.

(8) Schedule 1, item 9, page 12 (line 17), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(9) Schedule 1, item 9, page 12 (lines 19 and 20), omit "(within the meaning of section 1317AC)".

(10) Schedule 1, item 9, page 12 (line 24), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(11) Schedule 1, item 9, page 12 (line 30), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(12) Schedule 1, item 9, page 13 (line 2), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(13) Schedule 1, item 9, page 13 (lines 5 and 6), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(14) Schedule 1, item 9, page 13 (line 8), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(15) Schedule 1, item 9, page 13 (line 11), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(16) Schedule 1, item 9, page 13 (line 12), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(17) Schedule 1, item 9, page 13 (after line 12), after subsection 1317AD(2), insert:

(2A) A court may make an order under section 1317AE in relation to a person (the first person) that is a body corporate if:

(a) another person (the third person) engages in conduct (detrimental conduct) that:

(i) causes any detriment to a person (the second person) other than the first person or the third person; or

(ii) constitutes the making of a threat to cause any such detriment to a person (the second person) other than the first person or the third person; and

(b) when the third person engages in the detrimental conduct, the third person believes or suspects that the second person or any other person made, may have made, proposes to make or could make a disclosure that qualifies for protection under this Part; and

(c) the belief or suspicion referred to in paragraph (b) is the reason, or part of the reason, for the detrimental conduct; and

(d) the first person is under a duty to prevent the third person engaging in the detrimental conduct, or a duty to take reasonable steps to ensure that the third person does not engage in the detrimental conduct; and

(e) the first person fails in part or whole to fulfil that duty.

Burden of proof

(2B) In proceedings where a person seeks an order under section 1317AE in relation to another person:

(a) the person seeking the order bears the onus of adducing or pointing to evidence that suggests a reasonable possibility of the matters in:

(i) if subsection (1) of this section applies—paragraph (1)(a); or

(ii) if subsection (2) of this section applies—paragraph (1)(a), as mentioned in paragraph (2)(b); or

(iii) if subsection (2A) of this section applies—paragraphs (2A)(a) and (d); and

(b) if that onus is discharged—the other person bears the onus of proving that the claim is not made out.

(18) Schedule 1, item 9, page 13 (after line 19), after section 1317AD, insert:

1317ADA Detriment

In sections 1317AC and 1317AD, detriment includes (without limitation) any of the following:

(a) dismissal of an employee;

(b) injury of an employee in his or her employment;

(c) alteration of an employee's position or duties to his or her disadvantage;

(d) discrimination between an employee and other employees of the same employer;

(e) harassment or intimidation of a person;

(f) harm or injury to a person, including psychological harm;

(g) damage to a person's property;

(h) damage to a person's reputation;

(i) damage to a person's business or financial position;

(j) any other damage to a person.

(19) Schedule 1, item 9, page 13 (line 22), omit "subsections 1317AD(1) and (2)", substitute "subsections 1317AD(1), (2) and (2A)".

(20) Schedule 1, item 9, page 13 (line 26), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(21) Schedule 1, item 9, page 13 (line 28), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(22) Schedule 1, item 9, page 13 (line 32), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(23) Schedule 1, item 9, page 14 (line 2), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(24) Schedule 1, item 9, page 14 (line 6), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(25) Schedule 1, item 9, page 14 (lines 9 and 10), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(26) Schedule 1, item 9, page 14 (line 13), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(27) Schedule 1, item 9, page 14 (lines 15 and 16), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(28) Schedule 1, item 9, page 14 (line 18), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(29) Schedule 1, item 9, page 14 (lines 27 to 37), omit subsection 1317AE(2), substitute:

(2) If the detrimental conduct wholly or partly consists, or consisted, of terminating or purporting to terminate a person's employment (including detrimental conduct that forces or forced the person to resign), the court must, in making an order mentioned in paragraph (1)(a) or (b), consider the period, if any, the person is likely to be without employment as a result of the detrimental conduct. This subsection does not limit any other matter the court may consider.

(30) Schedule 1, item 9, page 15 (lines 1 to 4), omit subsection 1317AE(3), substitute:

(3) In deciding whether to make an order under paragraph (1)(b) in relation to the first person's employer, the court may have regard to the following:

(a) whether the employer took reasonable precautions, and exercised due diligence, to avoid the detrimental conduct;

(b) if the employer has a policy dealing with any or all of the matters referred to in subsection 1317AI(5) (whether or not section 1317AI requires the employer to have such a policy)—the extent to which the employer gave effect to that policy;

(c) any duty that the employer was under to prevent the detrimental conduct, or to take reasonable steps to ensure that the detrimental conduct was not engaged in.

(31) Schedule 1, item 9, page 17 (lines 22 and 23), omit "(within the meaning of section 1317AC)".

(32) Schedule 1, item 9, page 18 (after line 7), after section 1317AJ, insert:

1317AK Review of operation of whistleblower protections

(1) The Minister must cause a review to be undertaken of the operation of:

(a) this Part; and

(b) Part IVD of the Taxation Administration Act 1953.

Note: Part IVD of the Taxation Administration Act 1953 provides for protections for whistleblowers in relation to tax.

(2) The review must be conducted as soon as practicable after the end of 5 years after this section commences.

(3) The Minister must cause a written report about the review to be prepared.

(4) The Minister must cause a copy of the report to be laid before each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after the Minister receives the report.

(33) Schedule 1, item 12, page 19 (lines 27 to 29), omit subsection 1644(3), substitute:

(3) Subsections 1317AI(1) to (4), as inserted by item 9 of Schedule 1 to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enhancing Whistleblower Protections) Act 2018, apply on and after the day 6 months after the day that item commences.

(34) Schedule 1, item 15, page 27 (lines 6 to 20), omit subsection 14ZZY(5).

(35) Schedule 1, item 15, page 27 (line 25), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(36) Schedule 1, item 15, page 27 (lines 27 and 28), omit "(within the meaning of section 14ZZY)".

(37) Schedule 1, item 15, page 27 (line 32), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(38) Schedule 1, item 15, page 28 (line 4), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(39) Schedule 1, item 15, page 28 (line 11), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(40) Schedule 1, item 15, page 28 (lines 14 and 15), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(41) Schedule 1, item 15, page 28 (line 17), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(42) Schedule 1, item 15, page 28 (line 20), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(43) Schedule 1, item 15, page 28 (line 21), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(44) Schedule 1, item 15, page 28 (after line 21), after subsection 14ZZZ(2), insert:

(2A) A court may make an order under section 14ZZZA in relation to a person (the first person) that is a body corporate if:

(a) another person (the third person) engages in conduct (detrimental conduct) that:

(i) causes any detriment to a person (the second person) other than the first person or the third person; or

(ii) constitutes the making of a threat to cause any such detriment to a person (the second person) other than the first person or the third person; and

(b) when the third person engages in the detrimental conduct, the third person believes or suspects that the second person or any other person made, may have made, proposes to make or could make a disclosure that qualifies for protection under this Part; and

(c) the belief or suspicion referred to in paragraph (b) is the reason, or part of the reason, for the detrimental conduct; and

(d) the first person is under a duty to prevent the third person engaging in the detrimental conduct, or a duty to take reasonable steps to ensure that the third person does not engage in the detrimental conduct; and

(e) the first person fails in part or whole to fulfil that duty.

Burden of proof

(2B) In proceedings where a person seeks an order under section 14ZZZA in relation to another person:

(a) the person seeking the order bears the onus of adducing or pointing to evidence that suggests a reasonable possibility of the matters in:

(i) if subsection (1) of this section applies—paragraph (1)(a); or

(ii) if subsection (2) of this section applies—paragraph (1)(a), as mentioned in paragraph (2)(b); or

(iii) if subsection (2A) of this section applies—paragraphs (2A)(a) and (d); and

(b) if that onus is discharged—the other person bears the onus of proving that the claim is not made out.

(45) Schedule 1, item 15, page 28 (after line 28), after section 14ZZZ, insert:

14ZZZAA Detriment

In sections 14ZZY and 14ZZZ, detriment includes (without limitation) any of the following:

(a) dismissal of an employee;

(b) injury of an employee in his or her employment;

(c) alteration of an employee's position or duties to his or her disadvantage;

(d) discrimination between an employee and other employees of the same employer;

(e) harassment or intimidation of a person;

(f) harm or injury to a person, including psychological harm;

(g) damage to a person's property;

(h) damage to a person's reputation;

(i) damage to a person's business or financial position;

(j) any other damage to a person.

(46) Schedule 1, item 15, page 28 (line 31), omit "subsections 14ZZZ(1) and (2)", substitute "subsections 14ZZZ(1), (2) and (2A)".

(47) Schedule 1, item 15, page 29 (line 3), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(48) Schedule 1, item 15, page 29 (line 5), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(49) Schedule 1, item 15, page 29 (line 9), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(50) Schedule 1, item 15, page 29 (line 13), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(51) Schedule 1, item 15, page 29 (line 17), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(52) Schedule 1, item 15, page 29 (lines 20 and 21), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(53) Schedule 1, item 15, page 29 (line 24), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(54) Schedule 1, item 15, page 29 (lines 26 and 27), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(55) Schedule 1, item 15, page 29 (line 29), omit "victimising conduct", substitute "detrimental conduct".

(56) Schedule 1, item 15, page 30 (lines 1 to 11), omit subsection 14ZZZA(2), substitute:

(2) If the detrimental conduct wholly or partly consists, or consisted, of terminating or purporting to terminate a person's employment (including detrimental conduct that forces or forced the person to resign), the court must, in making an order mentioned in paragraph (1)(a) or (b), consider the period, if any, the person is likely to be without employment as a result of the detrimental conduct. This subsection does not limit any other matter the court may consider.

(57) Schedule 1, item 15, page 30 (lines 12 to 15), omit subsection 14ZZZA(3), substitute:

(3) In deciding whether to make an order under paragraph (1)(b) in relation to the first person's employer, the court may have regard to the following:

(a) whether the employer took reasonable precautions, and exercised due diligence, to avoid the detrimental conduct;

(b) if the employer has a policy dealing with any or all of the matters referred to in subsection 1317AI(5) of the Corporations Act 2001 (whether or not section 1317AI of that Act requires the employer to have such a policy)—the extent to which the employer gave effect to that policy;

(c) any duty that the employer was under to prevent the detrimental conduct, or to take reasonable steps to ensure that the detrimental conduct was not engaged in.

(58) Schedule 1, page 35 (after line 28), at the end of the Schedule, add:

Part 4—Contingent amendments

Corporations Act 2001

33 In the appropriate position in subsection 1317E ( 3 )

Insert:

34 At the end of Part 10.32

Add:

1644A Application of amendments relating to penalties

The amendments made by Part 4 of Schedule 1 to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enhancing Whistleblower Protections) Act 2018 apply in relation to the commission of an offence if the conduct constituting the commission of the offence occurs wholly on or after the commencement of that Part.

35 Schedule 3 (table items dealing with subsections 1317AC ( 1 ) , ( 2 ) and ( 3 ) and subsection 1317AE ( 1 ) )

Repeal the items, substitute:

Taxation Administration Act 1953

36 Subsection 14ZZW ( 1 ) (penalty)

Omit "30 penalty units", substitute "60 penalty units".

37 Subsections 14ZZY ( 1 ) and ( 2 ) (penalties)

Omit "120 penalty units", substitute "240 penalty units".

38 Application of amendments

The amendments of the Taxation Administration Act 1953 made by this Part apply in relation to the commission of an offence if the conduct constituting the commission of the offence occurs wholly on or after the commencement of this Part.

I will speak about the amendments briefly.

These amendments will further strengthen the corporate and tax whistleblowing protections provided in the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enhancing Whistleblower Protections) Bill 2017. The amendments will address most of the recommendations of the Senate Economics Legislation Committee report into the bill. The cohort of staff who are eligible to receive a whistleblower disclosure will be narrowed to senior managers to reduce the compliance burden on companies.

The emergency disclosure provision, which allows for disclosures to a journalist or a member of parliament, will be revised to align more closely with the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013. The definition of 'journalist' will be amended to extend protections to disclosures made to journalists employed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation or the Special Broadcasting Service.

To ensure the regime operates as intended, disclosures solely about personal employment matters will be excluded from protection under the corporate regime. The amendments will further improve access to compensation for whistleblowers who suffer victimisation. For example, the amendments require a court to consider the period a person is likely to be without employment in circumstances where the detrimental conduct involved termination of employment.

A statutory review of the new regime will be required five years after the commencement date of the bill. For the bill to effectively operate, the commencement date of the bill will be revised to the first day of the second quarter following royal assent. This will provide a lead-in period for businesses to adjust to the new laws.

Lastly, the amendments will give effect to the increased financial penalties in the Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Corporate and Financial Sector Penalties) Bill 2018 as it relates to offences under the corporate and tax whistleblower regime. The bill and the government amendments to the bill will not affect any existing rights and protections in respect of a constituent raising an issue with a member of parliament that may attract protection under parliamentary privilege. I commend these amendments to the Senate.

Senator O'NEILL (New South Wales) (10:30): Labor is pleased to support these amendments to the Treasury Laws Amendment (Enhancing Whistleblower Protections) Bill 2017. We consider that the government's original bill was very weak and failed to provide corporate whistleblowers with protections they actually need and deserve. Labor is pleased that the government finally agreed to strengthening this bill, which I know was the product of almost a year of pressure from Centre Alliance and, also, experts such as Professor AJ Brown, who joins us again today. I'm sure he's hoping the bill might actually pass through the Senate, because it's been a long couple of days getting through matters here in the Senate.

I also want to acknowledge the importance of the committee that was formed through the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Corporations and Financial Services. I particularly want to commend Labor's team on that committee—Ms Butler, Mr Keogh, Senator Ketter and myself—who, with great guidance in many ways from Professor Brown, was able to advance a road map. We'd have to say that the road map hasn't been completely followed by the government. This bill is contextually a significant step forward, but, nonetheless, it doesn't address all of the issues that were well aired in that inquiry.

Clearly, the amendments do some significant work, including changing the definition of 'journalist' for emergency and public interest disclosure categories to cover journalists working for the ABC online. We do support that amendment but we remain concerned that the proposed definition may not extend to journalists working for other entities such as The Guardian or The Conversation. We have raised this issue with the government, but, at this point in time, it would seem that they are not going to address that concern.

Importantly, the amendments will allow whistleblowers to make a claim for compensation when a body corporate breaches a duty it owes to the whistleblower to prevent a third party engaging in detrimental conduct towards them. This does represent a significant change in our conversations with whistleblowers. We hear time and time again how companies have let whistleblowers down and failed to protect them from reprisals, from victimisation and from colleagues within the same company with whom they've worked on many occasions. This duty will make it clear that companies must protect whistleblowers.

The amendments also provide that a court making a compensation order must consider the period a person is likely to be without employment in circumstances where the detrimental conduct involved termination of employment. We have heard through the media and, certainly, in the course of the inquiry into the bill and the inquiry that preceded it of whistleblowers and from whistleblowers who are unable to find work for years after they blow the whistle on misconduct. This small amendment will go some way to ensuring that compensation that they receive adequately takes into account the detriment they have suffered and are likely to suffer in the future.

We know, sadly, that this is a government that was very quick to put in place a strong regime for union whistleblowers but was incredibly slow to create the protections necessary for corporate whistleblowers. It's disappointing, but, sadly, not surprising anymore, that the government had to be dragged kicking and screaming to strengthen this bill. Time and time again we've seen them running a protection racket for big business. They resisted the banking royal commission for 600 days. They voted against the banking royal commission on 26 occasions. And just last week, in the House, the government voted against tougher penalties for corporate misconduct. While we acknowledge this is a step forward, this government has form. Last week they continued to show that they are the friends of the top end of town, and they continue to disappoint the Australian people. The protection racket that they're running has got to stop.

But I want to close, if I can, positively by acknowledging a few amendments that Labor are particularly supportive of. We are very pleased to see the public interest disclosure included in these amendments. The government's previous single emergency disclosure would not have provided whistleblowers with adequate protection when going to the media. We also support the expanded definition of 'detriment', about which Senator Patrick made some considerable comment in his contribution in the second reading stage. Labor recognise that whistleblowers are suffering in a multitude of ways. These amendments do not—I clearly state: they do not—make the bill as strong as Labor would have liked, but we are very pleased to see that the bill has been improved.

Question agreed to.

Senator SESELJA (Australian Capital Territory—Assistant Minister for Treasury and Finance) (10:35): The government opposes schedule 1, item 8, in the following terms:

(7) Schedule 1, item 8, page 11 (line 26) to page 12 (line 10), TO BE OPPOSED.

The TEMPORARY CHAIR ( Senator Williams ): The question is that item 8 of schedule 1 stand as printed.

Question negatived.

Senator WHISH-WILSON (Tasmania) (10:36): I move Australian Greens amendment on sheet 8421 revised:

(1) Page 2 (after line 11), after clause 3, insert:

4 Review of operation of amendments

(1) Within 2 years after the commencement of this section, the Minister must cause to be conducted an independent review of the operation of the amendments made by this Act.

(2) The review must:

(a) specifically examine the effectiveness of whistleblower protections amended or introduced by this Act;

(b) consider how the introduction of a rewards system for whistleblowers may increase reporting of corruption, fraud, tax evasion or avoidance, and misconduct within the corporate sector; and

(c) consider and examine an appropriate rewards or bounties system for whistleblowers who provide information that leads to successful enforcement action.

(3) The Minister must cause to be prepared a written report of the review within 12 months of the review commencing.

(4) The Minister must cause copies of the report to be tabled in each House of the Parliament within 15 sitting days of that House after the day on which the report is given to the Minister.

I'll speak to the amendment briefly. As I said yesterday in my speech in the second reading stage, we would like to see a rewards scheme put in place for whistleblowers. We'd like to see that as part of this legislation. Unfortunately, it's not going to be possible to have that drafted and put in in its entirety, so we would like to at least see a review as part of this legislation to make sure we do get any future government focused on a reward scheme. I'll just very quickly read some of the key recommendations from the PJC report on this:

… following the imposition of a penalty against a wrongdoer by a Court (or other body that may impose such a penalty), a whistleblower protection body … or prescribed law enforcement agencies may give a 'reward' to any relevant whistleblower.

…   …   …

… such a reward should be determined within such body's absolute discretion within a legislated range of percentages of the penalty imposed by the Court (or other body imposing the penalty) against the whistleblower's employer (or principal) in relation to the matters raised by the whistleblower or uncovered as a result of an investigation instigated from the whistleblowing and where the specific percentage allocated will be determined by the body taking into account stated relevant factors, such as:

the degree to which the whistleblower's information led to the imposition of the penalty;

the timeliness with which the disclosure was made;

whether there was an appropriate and accessible internal whistleblowing procedure within the company that the whistleblower felt comfortable to access without reprisal;

whether the whistleblower disclosed the protected matter to the media without disclosing the matter to an Australian law enforcement agency or did, but did not provide the agency with adequate time to investigate the issue before disclosing to the media;

whether adverse action was taken against the whistleblower by their employer;

whether the whistleblower received any penalty or exemplary damages (but not compensation) in connection to any adverse action connected with the disclosure; and

any involvement by the whistleblower in the conduct for which the penalty was imposed, noting that immunity from prosecution, seeking a reduced penalty against the whistleblower etc. is dealt with by separate processes and that a reward would be regarded as a proceed of crime, if the whistleblower had been involved in criminal conduct (i.e. immunity or reduced penalty, not the reward is the benefit and incentive).

So the committee agreed on putting a reward in the report as a major recommendation. I felt it was one of the key recommendations of the committee. It's disappointing, as I said yesterday, that a number of those recommendations haven't been dealt with in this legislation.

I understand, Minister, in your speech on the second reading today, you said that you are in the process of providing a response to those recommendations, so I look forward to that. But we would feel more comfortable with at least putting a clause into this legislation that this will be dealt with. We've had discussions with the government—with Treasury officials—on this issue in recent days. We wanted to have this within 12 months, but we're happy to put this in at 24 months, so two years down the track. I think that will, shall we say, sharpen the focus on actually getting this key recommendation implemented. We have an opportunity to at least put that in today, and I ask the Senate to consider the Greens amendment.

Senator O'NEILL (New South Wales) (10:39): Labor will not be supporting this amendment. I do want to acknowledge the importance of the report that the senator has been reading from, and I note it has the date of September 2017. The government should have well and truly responded to this very significant issue for the Australian people, but they haven't done so. In the absence of the government's response to that, I think that changes things somewhat, Senator Whish-Wilson. It's unlikely, in our view, that enough case law will develop in the next 12 months in order to conduct the kind of review you were foreshadowing in your comments. We also understand that the amendment as proposed, despite your expressed intention, is not supported by either the government or Centre Alliance.

Clearly, the PJC inquiry into whistleblowing considered how the introduction of a rewards system may assist whistleblowers and how it might work. I well remember those proposals and the briefing that we received on this issue from Professor Brown and many expert witnesses, and we considered the factors that a body administering a rewards scheme should consider when allocating a reward. Great work has already been done. Once again, it's a shame that the government didn't take the opportunity to respond to this report in full. In the absence of that, we are unable to support your amendment this morning, Senator Whish-Wilson.

Senator PATRICK (South Australia) (10:41): Centre Alliance won't be supporting the Greens amendment, for similar reasons to those espoused by Senator O'Neill. But I can assure Senator Whish-Wilson that, as soon as the bill has passed, my office will be contacting the government and we will be pestering—close to the point of stalking—the government to make sure that we continue down this pathway, this very good pathway, that we're on. I'm reminded of the saying: how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time is the answer. So, whilst we agree with the sentiment of the Greens, we will not be supporting the amendment.

Senator SESELJA (Australian Capital Territory—Assistant Minister for Treasury and Finance) (10:42): Senator Patrick, we hope that the pestering doesn't become stalking, but let's see how we go. The government won't be supporting Senator Whish-Wilson's amendment. It would require a review to be undertaken two years after the bill receives royal assent. This in our opinion is too short a period to judge the effectiveness of the amendments. The amendments do not commence on royal assent but up to six months later, meaning the effective review period may be as little as 18 months. The amendments requiring some companies to implement whistleblower policies may have only applied for as little as 12 months. The policy requirement for public companies, large proprietary companies and registrable superannuation entities to have a whistleblower policy may not even apply when the review needs to start.

The government has already tabled amendments, which passed, to introduce the review of the new whistleblower laws to be undertaken five years after the commencement of the bill. This implements the recommendation of the Senate Economics Committee report. A five-year period was chosen to allow time for proper consideration of the effectiveness of the new regime. The time frame suggested in the Greens amendment would not allow for this. The PJC inquiry recommended a rewards system. The government is considering those recommendations and will respond in due course. It is duplicative, even unnecessary, to require another review that must consider the introduction of a rewards system in addition to the existing consideration that the government is giving to the PJC recommendations.

Senator WHISH-WILSON (Tasmania) (10:43): I'd just like to get on record in terms of the minister's response that there is perhaps a little bit of confusion here. The five-year review that's been put into this legislation refers to what we're passing today, which I think all senators have acknowledged only partially reflects the PJC report and the good work that was done by this chamber and the other place. Our review very specifically refers to a rewards scheme. We would have liked to have seen that included in the detail today, along with many of the other the recommendations in that review. We've actually had plenty of time to do this, let's be honest. Senator Patrick, I understand that you personally agree with a rewards scheme and the concept of it, and I'm sure you do too, Senator O'Neill. So let's not gild the lily here. This is an opportunity to make sure that, for any future government—maybe your government, Senator O'Neill, rather than the minister's government, but whichever government it is in a year or two's time—there is a specific date set aside that will at least compel a review into a rewards scheme. Hopefully there are other avenues by which we can do that, but we felt like this was at least a half-measure that would be effective in this legislation today.

The TEMPORARY CHAIR ( Senator Williams ): The question is that the amendments moved by Senator Whish-Wilson be agreed to.

Question negatived.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

Bill reported with amendments; report adopted.

Senator SESELJA (Australian Capital Territory—Assistant Minister for Treasury and Finance) (10:46): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Senator CAMERON (New South Wales) (10:50): Labor will support this Fair Work Amendment (Family and Domestic Violence Leave) Bill 2018, even though it is deficient. We want women who need it to be able to access the five days of unpaid leave. However, our commitment, if we are fortunate enough to win government, is to put 10 days paid domestic violence leave into the National Employment Standards. That's what a Labor government would do.

On average, one woman a week is killed as a result of domestic violence. This is a national tragedy. The ABS estimates that around two out of every three women who experience domestic violence are in the workforce. There can be no doubt that a comprehensive response to domestic violence involves a workplace response.

We know that in addition to the terrible personal and social cost of domestic violence there is a significant cost to business. In May 2016, KPMG estimated that the cost of violence against women and their children on production and the business sector was $1.9 billion for 2015-16. Certainly, the cost to business, in our view, is secondary to the personal cost for women suffering domestic violence, but this is an issue which we should also understand.

The Fair Work Amendment (Family and Domestic Violence Leave) Bill 2018 follows the decision of the Fair Work Commission in March this year to insert a clause into modern awards providing five days unpaid family and domestic violence leave. The provisions of the bill appear to reflect the model clause and provide that the family and domestic violence leave entitlement of five days: will apply to all employees, including casuals; will be available in full at the commencement of each 12-month period rather than accruing progressively during a year of service; will not accumulate from year to year; and will be available in full to part-time and casual employees.

While this bill is a step in the right direction, it doesn't go far enough. It should provide for paid family and domestic violence leave. It's disappointing—and to some extent I think it's incomprehensible—that the government have taken so long to move from their absolute opposition to family and domestic violence leave to their belated support for unpaid leave. We know that the minister first committed to unpaid leave at the end of March but did not introduce this bill until September.

We know that the most dangerous time for a woman is when she's leaving a violent relationship. She will often need to find new accommodation, get security, get an apprehended violence order from police, seek treatment for injuries and, perhaps, attend court appearances. If a woman needs to take time off work to do these vital things to keep herself and her family safe she should not have to worry about losing pay to do so. I think this demonstrates that the coalition—the government—just doesn't get it. These are really important times for women. A woman, and her children in many cases, should be able to receive a pay cheque and she should be able to go back to work at a time following dealing with these issues.

Last year, Labor announced that a Shorten Labor government will introduce 10 days paid domestic violence leave into the National Employment Standards. We are disappointed that the government has refused to join us in this important commitment. Labor has listened to victims, frontline workers, business, unions and organisations that deal daily with domestic violence. Their clear message is that people who have experienced domestic violence need more support in the workplace. I just wish the government would have listened to these professionals dealing with the fallout of domestic violence, dealing with the tragedy of domestic violence and dealing with the issues that families need to deal with when recovering from domestic violence attacks. The government should have listened.

Other jurisdictions have introduced paid domestic violence leave. Labor believes that Australia's federal workplace system should also provide this important workplace entitlement. For example, in July this year, New Zealand legislated paid domestic and family violence leave, guaranteeing 10 days paid leave for all workers who are experiencing violence and need to escape. Queensland and Western Australia offer 10 days paid domestic violence leave to public sector employees, while South Australia offers 15 and Victoria and the ACT offer 20. Just last week, the New South Wales Liberal government announced 10 days paid leave for their employees. If the New South Wales Liberal government can do it, Minister, why can't this Liberal government do it? More than 1,000 enterprise agreements approved under the Fair Work Act between 1 January 2016 and 30 June 2017 provide for 10 or more days paid domestic and family violence leave. Flagship companies such as Carlton & United Breweries, IKEA, NAB, Qantas, Telstra and Virgin Australia provide for paid leave. Last week, Aldi joined the list. Labor knows that many small businesses where employers and employees have close working relations also support their staff to take paid leave to deal with the consequences of domestic violence.

While we do not anticipate there would be a significant uptake of all 10 days leave, it's crucial that it is available for those women who need it. Research by the Australia Institute in 2016 estimated that domestic violence leave wage payouts would be equivalent to less than one-fiftieth of one per cent—that's 0.02 per cent—of existing payrolls. It's not an issue of cost. The study also found that the cost to employers associated with those payouts is likely to be largely or completely offset by benefits to employers associated with the provision of paid domestic leave, including reduced turnover and improved productivity. Those payouts are likely to be largely or completely offset by benefits to employers associated with the provision of paid domestic and family violence leave, including reduced turnover, absenteeism, recruitment and training, along with improved productivity. Paid domestic violence leave benefits those who take it and it benefits their employers.

Labor will support this bill. The bill does not deliver what Labor would do in government, but, for those employees who need that five days unpaid leave, we think that they should be able to access it. But, again, Labor in government will fix this. We will meet the emerging standard of business, some overseas countries and public services around the country. This is such an important issue. Having at least the knowledge that for 10 days after experiencing domestic violence you can undertake the necessary steps to protect yourself, protect your family, and do that with an income still coming in, I think, is the demonstration of a good society, a good business. It's the demonstration that a government understands what is a growing problem in our society and is taking steps to deal with it.

All the rhetoric, all the slogans from the coalition government on this would lead you to believe you should accept this, the 10 days paid provision, with no problems but, unfortunately, that is not the case. And I suppose it demonstrates, again, how much chaos this government is in that it can't even concentrate on the basics to protect Australian women and children, predominantly, from domestic violence. So we reluctantly support the bill that's before us. We don't understand why it's taken so long to come here. We do believe it is insufficient to deal with the key issues that are faced by predominantly women facing domestic violence, but I think the sooner we get this through, the better. It's another reason why, in the future, the public needs to understand that a Labor government will fix this to a standard that is becoming accepted in business and in other countries around the world.

Senator WATERS (Queensland) (11:01): I rise to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Family and Domestic Violence Leave) Bill 2018. What a long time coming this bill has been. The sector has been pleading for such a long time for more support for women and children seeking to escape family and domestic violence. Finally the Fair Work Commission looked into this and, earlier this year, issued a remarkable finding that, in my view, flew in the face of the evidence and said that, no, women shouldn't be entitled to be paid while they get themselves and their children safe from violence and possible death. No, they shouldn't be allowed to be paid. They can have some time off work but they can't actually get paid for it. So I think that was a wrong decision by the commission.

Whilst I am supportive of the fact that the government has at least taken this small step, I think it's a huge missed opportunity to actually protect women and children from what is now an epidemic of violence against them in their homes. We know the statistics. One in three Australian women will experience violence by a partner or a former partner at some time in their life and more than one woman a week now is being killed. The very least a government could do would be to say that, yes, you should be entitled to be paid while you take the time to make the logistical arrangements—to seek the legal advice, to ring up the removalist truck, to change your kids' schools. The very least you should be able to do is to be paid while you take the time to keep yourself and your family alive. But no, that's too much of an impost on business for this government. We can't keep women safe. We can't actually pay them while they escape violence and try to start a new life and keep themselves and their family alive. It's a huge missed opportunity.

I am grateful the Labor Party have come on board with this notion of 10 days paid leave and I look forward to us working together in the new parliament, where it looks like this government will be on the opposition benches, where I believe they belong and deserve to be. I look forward to getting this done and to actually giving women and children 10 days of paid leave. What this government fails to understand is many ordinary Australians are on the breadline. They cannot afford to go without pay for a week, certainly not when they've got additional expenses to get themselves safe like getting to legal advice appointments, like emergency accommodation and shelter, like a removal truck, new school fees, new uniforms. Many people can't afford those additional expenses and certainly can't afford them if they've had to go without pay for a week. I think, whilst the government is trying to do something that makes it look like they understand women, it's pretty clear they don't and it's pretty clear what is actually needed is 10 days of paid leave. I look forward to being able to achieve that once this government is on the opposition benches and we can work with a fresh government.

On that point, I want to mention some of the statistics. The ACTU has said that it costs, on average, $18,000 and takes 141 hours for a woman to escape a violent relationship. So, again, how on earth is any ordinary person meant to be able to afford that when they've just had a week of pay docked? There was another statistic that was quoted in the inquiry into this bill that says one in four Australian households have less than $1,000 in cash savings, and I can certainly believe that. People don't just have money lying around and certainly not women who are in controlling relationships where often they lack financial security and independence precisely because they're in a relationship about power and control.

I want to put on record that I think it's incredibly damning that the Prime Minister has tweeted about sport and launched a war on strawberries and a war on sharks but has said absolutely nothing about family and domestic violence—the single biggest issue that women in this country are facing. It's an indictment on this government, and it really signifies their view of women. It's no surprise, really, that we've heard nothing from the Prime Minister on this most pressing issue because, in fact, he's said nothing at all about the issues women face generally. The Women's Economic Security Statement that was released by the minister a couple of weeks ago was equally laughable in the lowness of its ambitions. Unfortunately, it's par for the course for this government. So, whilst we will be supporting this bill today because it is a microstep forward, it falls so far short of what everybody knows is needed, and that is to actually pay women while they take leave so that they can get themselves and their family safe.

That is obviously the morally right thing to do, but even the economics of it support that approach. In the inquiry into this bill, we heard from many, many businesses that said: 'We understand it will actually cost us more if we have to lose staff, retrain new staff and deal with the upheaval and the loss of skills and the loss of knowledge. We understand it is an investment in our people, and we are happy to pay two weeks of leave in order to keep our staff cohesion and to keep that knowledge to keep our business ticking over.' As the former speaker, Senator Cameron, said, many businesses are now voluntarily providing this. What a shame we don't see the government leading on this and saying, 'We think this is a great idea to keep women safe, and we want to mandate it.' Naturally, they can't lead on this issue or any other issue for that matter.

I want to flag that we had amendments to this bill to improve it—to make the leave paid, to make it 10 days and to expand the definition of who could seek to apply to use this leave. But, if we agreed to not move those amendments, this bill could pass. So I want to put that on record—that that was the government's price. We can get this done today, and we can make this important but small step forward as long as we don't try to improve it and actually do what needs to be done. I want to place on record that we very much look forward to fixing and improving this and delivering for Australian workers what they deserve and what they need, and that is paid domestic and family violence leave for 10 days. I cannot wait for the opportunity to do that, and I cannot wait to see this government, with its absolute lack of understanding and lack of care about issues confronting women, consigned to the opposition benches.

Senator HUME (Victoria—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (11:08): I rise today to speak on the Fair Work Amendment (Family and Domestic Violence Leave) Bill. I'm very proud, as a member of this government, and as a female member of this government, to rise to speak to this bill today in the same week that we also passed the Family Law Amendment (Family Violence and Cross-examination of Parties) Bill. It is a demonstration that this government is committed to addressing the scourge of family violence in this country. We have already funded over $300 million worth of services and programs to address the issue of family violence, including the $100 million Women's Safety Package in 2015.

This bill that we rise to speak on today delivers on the government's commitment to extend the decision of the Fair Work Commission in March 2018 to grant five days unpaid leave for up to 2.3 million workers on awards and for up to six million additional workers. It's very important that the parliament reflect on how we got to this important moment, so I'd like to speak about the deliberations and the decisions of the Fair Work Commission on this matter.

This bill reflects years of careful consideration of the issue of family and domestic violence leave by the Fair Work Commission, whose role under the Fair Work Act 2009 is to:

… ensure that modern awards, together with the National Employment Standards, provide a fair and relevant minimum safety net of terms and conditions …

The ACTU's claim for a new entitlement to 10 days of paid family and domestic violence leave was, in fact, rejected by the commission on 3 July 2017 after it considered extensive evidence and submissions from a wide range of interested parties. Instead, the commission indicated a preliminary view that an unpaid leave entitlement should be inserted into modern awards. The commission confirmed that preliminary view on 26 March this year when it decided that an entitlement to five days unpaid family and domestic violence leave should be inserted into modern awards as a minimum entitlement. After the commission's decision on 26 March this year, the Fair Work Commission issued a draft award term for consideration by the parties. The commission invited further written submissions after that point from unions, and also from employer groups, on the draft term and then held a further hearing on 21 June. Further submissions were made following that hearing. On 6 July this year the Fair Work Commission issued the final award term. On 27 July the model term was inserted into all modern awards, and it commenced operations on 1 August this year. The government introduced the bill into parliament in the first following sitting period. Any claim that the government has been dragging its feet on this decision is false and, dare I say, scurrilous.

The commission's decision was reached after four years of consideration of evidence and was based on the input and advocacy of a range of unions and employer representative bodies. Between October 2014 and July 2018, the Fair Work Commission considered 68 written submissions from 27 separate parties and heard evidence from 26 witnesses over 11 days of hearings in its consideration of both paid and unpaid family and domestic violence leave. Submissions were made and hearings were conducted for every single step of the process. It's worth recalling some of the commission's findings. I would like to quote some of them now. The commission said:

… we are not satisfied, at this time, that it is necessary to provide ten days paid family and domestic violence leave to all employees covered by modern awards.

It also went on to say:

The ACTU has not provided a satisfactory explanation as to how it arrived at ten days and the evidence does not support a finding that ten days paid leave is necessary.

That is from the Fair Work Commission, the independent umpire established by the previous government. The commission also concluded:

… we should take a cautious approach to the introduction of family and domestic violence leave, particularly paid family and domestic violence leave.

'A cautious approach': that was the considered decision of the commission when it decided on five days unpaid leave. The government intends to legislate this to ensure that employees who do not have access to the award entitlement will still be able to access five days unpaid family and domestic violence leave. In line with the commission's model award term, the new family and domestic violence leave entitlement in the bill will be available to all employees, including part-time and casual employees. The five days leave will be available at the start of each 12-month period and will not accumulate from year to year.

The differences between the model term and the bill are very minor and only technical in nature, and they reflect the different legal contexts in which they operate. For example, the bill deals with its interaction with state laws, which is necessary because the subject matter of leave for victims of crime was, in fact, excluded from the state referrals by all referring states. These are necessary variations and they don't in any way undermine the government's commitment to extend the entitlement for award-reliant employees to all employees covered by the Fair Work Act. This is an important improvement to the minimum safety net of terms and conditions, and the parliament should pass it without delay.

This bill is a very significant step forward in how workplaces respond to the issue of family and domestic violence. We know from ABS data that over 60 per cent of women experiencing violence from a current partner are working. The workplace can provide a place of normalcy and safety for people experiencing family and domestic violence, and in that environment colleagues can also be a vital source of emotional support. Indeed, it can be somewhat of a sanctuary. But we also know that victims of family and domestic violence will have times when they need to take leave from work to deal with the impact of the violence inflicted upon them. However, currently not all employees have the workplace right to take necessary leave from work at such a difficult time in their lives. So the government's bill that we are considering today proposes such leave for up to eight million employees under the Fair Work Act.

The government's bill provides for a new universal entitlement to five days family and domestic violence leave. It will allow people to take time off to attend to matters that would be impractical to deal with outside of work hours. The bill matches the decision of the Fair Work Commission for award-reliant employees. Legislating this universal entitlement will provide both equity and consistency between award-reliant and other national system employees and employers. There are about 810,000 small businesses with award-reliant employees and, therefore, they are affected by the Fair Work Commission's family and domestic violence leave decision. The bill does not create any additional obligations on those businesses. Larger businesses, in fact, are more likely to have an existing enterprise agreement or other registered agreement already in place and these agreements may not offer any family or domestic violence leave. So, by legislating family and domestic violence leave as part of the National Employment Standards, all businesses, regardless of their size, must provide this workplace right to employees.

Employers should expect certainty from government and from this parliament. They make decisions on the basis of what this government says it will do. In this case, we have committed to taking the right step at this time, matching the Fair Work Commission decision on unpaid leave. The commission, in determining what was right for a fair and relevant minimum safety net, decided that unpaid leave was necessary to enable employees to take time off to deal with matters while also maintaining the security of their employment. The commission rejected that paid leave was necessary. As it is required to do, the commission weighed up what was fair for working Australians and also appropriate for businesses at this time. The Fair Work Commission said that unpaid leave would confirm the significance of family and domestic violence leave as a workplace right and it would also provide an employment protection in circumstances where there is a need to access that leave. It committed to looking at the issue of family and domestic violence leave again in mid-2021, including whether further provision should be made for paid family and domestic violence leave. So the commission will be looking at this issue once more.

Up to 2.3 million award-reliant employees have had access to this new workplace right since 1 August 2018, based on the Fair Work Commission's decision. Legislating family and domestic violence leave as part of the National Employment Standards will provide this entitlement to up to six million additional employees. All national system employees will have access to this new workplace right regardless of whether they are full-time, part-time or casual employees. They will have access to this new workplace right regardless of whether they work for a small, medium or large employer. They will have access to this new workplace right regardless of whether they are employed under a modern award, an enterprise agreement or an individual agreement.

Legislating this entitlement into the Fair Work Act means that an employee who takes family and domestic violence leave will be protected from unlawful adverse action under the general protection provisions of the Fair Work Act. This means that someone can take time off work to do things that need to be done, whether it be moving house or making arrangements for their children's safety, and they can do that confident that their job is protected while they do so.

This new workplace entitlement will complement other protections that already exist under the Fair Work Act. Employees, for instance, who experience illness or injury as a result of family and domestic violence can access personal sick leave. Employees who need to care for immediate family or for household members who are ill or injured in an unexpected emergency as a result of family and domestic violence can access carer's leave. Employees experiencing family and domestic violence leave can also request flexible working arrangements, including changing their hours of work or their location of work. Combined with this new leave entitlement in this particular bill, the Fair Work Act provides significant support to employees who are dealing with the impact of family and domestic violence.

We all have a role to play in dealing with family and domestic violence. The workplace is where many of us spend a significant proportion of our time and our lives, and it is right and proper that employees in the national system have access to a consistent minimum standard of family and domestic violence leave. This new minimum condition cannot be bargained away, and it will form part of the safety net for all employees whether they work in large, small or medium businesses. Enshrining five days unpaid family and domestic violence leave into the National Employment Standards establishes the floor, not the ceiling, and it extends a guaranteed entitlement to up to six million employees under the Fair Work Act who do not currently have access to such leave.

Women need to feel safe in their communities. They need to feel safe online, they need to feel safe at home and they need to feel safe in their workplaces. This government is committed to addressing the issue of family and domestic violence. We know that around 17 per cent of women over the age of 15 have experienced violence, whether it be physical or sexual, from a current or former partner—that's nearly one in six women over the age of 15. This government is committed to resolutely addressing family and domestic violence. It is an issue that demands action on not just this front but many fronts. The bill that's before us today, to provide a minimum standard of five days unpaid leave for all employees covered by the Fair Work Act, is an important step to take now, and it's one of many actions that this government has taken on family and domestic violence.

I will reiterate again that, since we were elected in 2013, we have committed over $300 million to addressing family and domestic violence. That is more than any government has ever committed previously. In 2015 we committed $100 million through the Women's Safety Package. That provided crucial funding for programs like the 1800RESPECT line, which is a national telephone and online counselling information service, which can ensure that more women, even in remote communities, can get the support they need. We also funded local women's caseworkers to coordinate and support women who are escaping domestic violence. That includes housing, safety and budgeting services.

In 2016 we committed a further $100 million under the Third Action Plan of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children. That Third Action Plan sets out an ambitious agenda that, with the support of key stakeholders and the community, will substantially reduce domestic, family and sexual violence in Australia. And the work has not stopped there; work on developing the Fourth Action Plan is also well underway.

As part of this process, the Minister for Women, the Hon. Kelly O'Dwyer MP, co-chaired the COAG National Summit on Reducing Violence against Women and their Children in Adelaide at the beginning of October this year. Recent federal budgets have also underscored this government's commitment to addressing family and domestic violence. We announced a number of measures in the 2017-18 budget, including $55.7 million for community legal centres directed to frontline family law and family violence services. There was $10.7 million for the family law courts to employ additional family consultants, who prepare family reports to inform the court about risks to family safety. There was $12.7 million to establish Parent Management Hearings, a new and innovative forum to resolve family law disputes between self-represented litigants. And there was $3.4 million to expand the national pilot program for Specialist Domestic Violence Units that provide wraparound, legal and other support services to women who are experiencing or who are at risk of family and domestic violence.

Further measures announced in the 2018-19 budget include $22 million over five years to address the abuse of older Australians, which affects up to 20 per cent of elderly women; $14.2 million over four years for the Office of the e-Safety Commissioner, to help make cyberspace safe for women; $6.7 million to maintain funding for DV-alert to continue its domestic violence response training for community frontline workers; and an additional $11.5 million for the national sexual assault, domestic and family violence counselling service—the 1800RESPECT line that I referred to earlier—over the next two years. That 1800RESPECT line has proven to be a vital support service for so many women. On 27 November 2018, just this year, the government announced an additional $10.9 million for 1800RESPECT to ensure it continues to deliver a trusted and valued service to the community.

In November this year the Minister for Women also delivered the first Women's Economic Security Statement, worth over $109 million over four years, to shine a floodlight on obstacles to women building their financial security and focusing on practical measures to help change that. The measures in that statement to support women's economic independence are worth over $35.6 million over four years and include a number of measures to help Australian women experiencing family and domestic violence.

Domestic violence is an issue that this government has not ignored, and which no government can afford to ignore. It has both physically- and psychologically-damaging outcomes. Indeed, those who have suffered at the hands of domestic violence are possibly the most vulnerable in our community. This legislation is not a silver bullet, neither is the family law amendment which prevents cross-examination and nor is the inaugural Women's Economic Security Statement, but they all help and they're a demonstration of the commitment by this government. This legislation is necessary, but more so is a cultural shift: violence against women begins with respecting women.

Senator SESELJA (Australian Capital Territory—Assistant Minister for Treasury and Finance) (11:28): I thank all senators for their contributions and for their support for this bill. I particularly want to acknowledge the genuine and bipartisan concern and support for ensuring that this important legislation is passed before the parliament rises for the festive season.

The scourge of family and domestic violence strikes at the hearts of our communities and continues to impact on far too many Australians. ABS data tells us that one in six Australian women and one in 16 men have been subjected to physical and/or sexual violence since the age of 15 by a current or previous cohabiting partner. And almost one in four women and one in six men have experienced emotional abuse from a current or former partner since the age of 15.

We know that women are more likely to experience family and domestic violence. Every member of parliament who has risen to speak on this bill has spoken of the tragedy of family and domestic violence, and the great pain and anguish that it causes those who experience it, their children and their loved ones. We all know somebody who has been affected by family and domestic violence in the Australian community, and its debilitating effects ripple out into the community and compound from there. I know we share a genuine concern for eliminating the scourge of family and domestic violence and ensuring that our women and children are safe. Regrettably, we know that the Christmas season is, tragically, a time when women and their children can be particularly vulnerable to the devastating effects of family and domestic violence. The support for this bill means that the new minimum entitlement to five days of unpaid family and domestic violence leave will be extended to all employees covered by the Fair Work Act before Christmas so that employees and particularly women are protected in their greatest moment of need.

By enshrining the leave in the National Employment Standards, all national system employees will be guaranteed the minimum leave entitlement regardless of whether they are: full time, part time or casual; working for a small, medium or large employer; or covered by awards, enterprise agreements or individual arrangements. When passed, every employee who is covered by this new entitlement provided for in the bill will be guaranteed a full five days of leave the day after the new act receives royal assent, and these will reset on the anniversary of their employment. Employees who start a new job after the provisions commence will also get the full entitlement on commencement of employment with that employer, with the entitlement resetting on the anniversary of that day each year thereafter.

This bill is a significant step in how workplaces respond to the issue of family and domestic violence. We know from ABS data that over 60 per cent of women experiencing violence from a current partner are working. The workplace can provide a place of normalcy for people experiencing family and domestic violence, and colleagues can be a vital source of emotional support. But we also know that people who experience family and domestic violence will have times when they need to take leave from work to deal with the impacts of this violence. This bill ensures that all employees under the Fair Work Act, whether award-reliant or not, will have a workplace right to take necessary leave from work at such a difficult time. It will ensure any national system employee who takes family and domestic violence leave will be protected from unlawful adverse action under the general protections provisions of the Fair Work Act. This means that someone can take time off work to do things that need to be done, such as participating in court processes, attending property inspections, attending medical or counselling services, attending appointments at financial institutions or making arrangements for children's safety. They can do these things confident in the knowledge that their job is protected. It means that women are protected from prejudicial action, such as dismissal or reducing of their shifts, when they need to take leave to deal with the impact of this violence.

The bill delivers on the government's commitment to extend the Fair Work Commission to provide for unpaid family and domestic violence leave for award-reliant employees. Legislating this universal entitlement will provide equity and consistency between award-reliant and other national system employees and employers. By legislating family and domestic violence leave as part of the National Employment Standards, all businesses, regardless of size, must provide this workplace right to employees. We've committed to taking this right step at this time, matching the Fair Work Commission decision on unpaid leave.

The Fair Work Commission, in determining what was required for a fair and relevant minimum safety net, decided that unpaid leave was necessary to enable employees to take time off to deal with matters while maintaining the security of their employment. The commission rejected that paid leave was necessary. The Fair Work Commission said unpaid leave would confirm the significance of family and domestic violence leave as a workplace right and provide an employment protection in circumstances where there is a need to access such leave. The Fair Work Commission committed to looking at the issue of family and domestic violence leave again in mid-2021, including whether further provisions should be made for paid family and domestic violence leave.

Since 1 August 2018, up to 2.3 million award-reliant employees have had access to this new workplace right based on the Fair Work Commission's decision. Legislating family and domestic violence leave as part of the National Employment Standards will provide this entitlement to up to six million additional employees. This new workplace entitlement will complement other protections that already exist under the Fair Work Act. Employees may be able to access personal carer's leave to recover from illness or injury or to care for immediate family and household members who are ill or injured in an unexpected emergency. Employees experiencing family and domestic violence may be able to request flexible working arrangements, including changes to hours of work, patterns of work or location of work.

Combined with the new leave entitlement in this bill, the Fair Work Act provides significant support to employees dealing with the impact of family and domestic violence. We all have a role to play in dealing with family and domestic violence. The workplace is where many of us spend a large proportion of our time, and it is right and proper that employees in the national system have access to a consistent minimum standard of family and domestic violence leave. This new minimum condition cannot be bargained away and will form part of the safety net for all employees whether they work in a small or larger business. Family and domestic violence is unacceptable anywhere and anytime. With the passage of this new act, employees experiencing such violence have important new workplace protections.

Addressing violence against women remains a priority of this government. This bill is just one aspect of the comprehensive action we are taking. Since 2015, the government has invested over $300 million to improve women's safety. In the 2018-19 budget we announced $54.4 million in new funding for online safety initiatives and critical domestic violence services to ensure women are safe at home, online and at work. This included funding for a DV alert, a program to build capacity in frontline workers for whom family violence is not a core function of their role. It also included funding for 1800RESPECT, the flagship national domestic and family violence and sexual assault counselling, information and support service. 1800RESPECT has proven to be a vital support service for many. I am pleased that, in addition to this budget funding, on 27 November 2018 the government announced that 1800RESPECT will receive $10.9 million in additional funding to meet ongoing demand.

The government previously committed $100 million to fund the Third Action Plan, a further step in a 12-year national plan to achieve a significant and sustained reduction in violence against women and their children. One project under the Third Action Plan that I would like to draw attention to is the development of a one-stop shop of online resources. Employers have told us that they want to be able to help their employees experiencing family and domestic violence but they are not sure how to do so. They want to be able to offer practical support and assistance to their employees in such terrible circumstances. They also understand that, by helping their employees, they are providing a safe and productive workplace for all their workers. The one-stop shop will provide holistic, best practice guidance for employers and employees to help support victims of family and domestic violence. I welcome the positive response to the latest ads as part of the award-winning Stop it at the Start campaign, where, in partnership with states and territories, we have committed $30 million to target influences of young people, such as parents, friends, teachers and coaches, to bring about generational changes in attitudes of violence against women.

I know that Minister O'Dwyer was pleased to co-host the COAG National Summit on Reducing Violence Against Women and their Children on 2 and 3 October 2018 in Adelaide. The government looks forward to continuing to work with states and territories and the Australian community as we develop the fourth action plan of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children. The government is also proud to be contributing half a million dollars towards the Australian Human Rights Commission's inquiry into sexual harassment in the workplace, led by Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins.

The government understands that we can help women to build their financial security through practical measures. This is why Minister O'Dwyer delivered the first ever Women's Economic Security Statement, focused on three pillars—specifically, workforce participation, earning potential, and economic independence. We know that economic independence is a critical issue for women experiencing family and domestic violence, and, as part of this pillar, the government is providing funding of $35.6 million over four years. The new measures include extending funding for specialist domestic violence units and health justice partnerships to help women get on top of their finances through training and support.

We are also expanding Good Shepherd Microfinance's No Interest Loan Scheme. This will help women experiencing family and domestic violence access finance when they most need it without high interest holding back their financial recovery into the future. The loans will be able to assist with relocation, essential household items, rental bonds or, where appropriate, debt consolidation.

The government's also extending the ability to access early release of superannuation to victims of family and domestic violence. While superannuation should ideally be preserved until retirement, there are certain immediate and extreme circumstances where the benefits today outweigh the benefits of maintaining those savings until retirement. The government has consulted with stakeholders and considers that family and domestic violence is one of these special circumstances. Extending early access to superannuation, in addition to other support, can provide an important last-resort lifeline needed to begin the recovery process in a safe environment. We're also funding legal assistance to ensure that victims of family violence are appropriately protected from direct cross-examination by their perpetrators in family law matters.

These important measures support women's financial security to help them escape violent relationships. I'm proud of this government's record on women's economic security. Under this government, there are more women in work than ever before, with over 5.9 million women in work. Women's workforce participation is at record highs under our government. We are on track to meet the G20 commitments to reduce the gap in women's workforce participation by 25 per cent to 9.1 percentage points by 2025. In October 2018, the participation gap was standing at 9.5 percentage points. Women must be safe in their homes, online, in their community and at work, and this bill will assist to make that a reality. Under this government, we are also making good progress on closing the gender pay gap. It was 17.2 per cent when we took office in 2013 and is now at a record low of 14.5 per cent.

In closing, the bill before the Senate now is an important part of the comprehensive support provided by this government to working women experiencing family and domestic violence. Family and domestic violence is unacceptable anywhere, anytime. This bill is the right step now to provide important workplace entitlements and protections to employees experiencing such violence. I urge all senators to support extending this important safety net entitlement to all workers under the Fair Work Act.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

The PRESIDENT (11:42): As no amendments have been circulated, does any senator require a committee stage? There being no request, I shall call the minister to move the third reading.

Senator SESELJA (Australian Capital Territory—Assistant Minister for Treasury and Finance) (11:42): I move:

That this bill be now read a third time.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Senator CAMERON (New South Wales) (11:42): I rise to strongly oppose the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Drug Testing Trial) Bill 2018. This is the second time the government has tried to introduce drug-testing trials, and we will oppose this bill just as strongly as we opposed their last failed attempt. The bill proposes the trial of random drug testing of some 5,000 income support recipients in selected locations around Australia: Logan in Queensland, Mandurah in Western Australia and Canterbury-Bankstown in Sydney.

Senator Siewert interjecting—

Senator CAMERON: I pronounced Mandurah wrong? I can always blame my accent!

This is an ideological war on the most vulnerable in our society. This is a government that continues to demonstrate it just doesn't get it. It just sees the most vulnerable in our society as someone they can kick, someone they can attack, someone that they can continually try to reduce the position of in this society. It is absolute nonsense. Addiction is a health issue. It is not something that should be the focus of penal powers by this government. I have to say, if you want to do drug testing, how about doing drug testing amongst some of the bankers in the eastern suburbs of Sydney, not the poor people in this country who are relying on social security. This proposal has been considered by the Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee on two occasions. On each occasion, the overwhelming evidence from the—

The PRESIDENT: Order, Senator Cameron! You will be in continuation when debate resumes. I now interrupt the debate as it is 11.45 am.

Senator WILLIAMS (New South Wales—Nationals Whip in the Senate) (11:46): On behalf of Senator Bushby, I present the 15th report for 2018 of the Selection of Bills Committee. I seek leave to have the report incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The report read as follows—

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Report no. 15 of 2018

1. The committee met in private session on Wednesday, 5 December 2018 at 7.28 pm.

2. The committee recommends that—

(a) the Corporations (Aboriginal and Tones Strait Islander) Amendment (Strengthening Governance and Transparency) Bill 2018 be referred immediately to the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 11 February 2019 (see appendix 1 for statements of reasons for referral);

(b) contingent upon introduction in the House of Representatives, the provisions of the Export Finance and Insurance Corporation Amendment (Support for Infrastructure Financing) Bill 2018 be referred immediately to the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 6 February 2019 (see appendix 2 for a statement of reasons for referral);

(c) the provisions of the Future Drought Fund Bill 2018 and Future Drought Fund (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2018 be referred immediately to the Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 8 February 2019 (see appendix 3 for a statement of reasons for referral);

(d) the Galilee Basin (Coal Prohibition) Bill 2018 be referred immediately to the Environment and Communications Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 13 February 2019 (see appendix 4 for a statement of reasons for referral);

the Lower Tax Bill 2018 be referred immediately to the Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 2 April 2019 (see appendix 5 for a statement of reasons for referral);

the provisions of the Migration Amendment (Streamlining Visa Processing) Bill 2018 be referred immediately to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 25 February 2019 (see appendix 6 for a statement of reasons for referral);

contingent upon introduction in the House of Representatives, the provisions of the National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Worker Screening Database) Bill 2018 be referred immediately to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 8 February 2019 (see appendix 7 for a statement of reasons for referral);

the Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australia Fund Bill 2018 be referred immediately to the Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 3 April 2019 (see appendix 8 for a statement of reasons for referral);

the provisions of the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Supporting Retirement Incomes) Bill 2018 be referred immediately to the

Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 11 February 2019 (see appendix 9 for a statement of reasons for referral); and

(j) contingent upon introduction in the House of Representatives, the provisions of the Treasury Laws Amendment (Consumer Data Right) Bill 2018 be referred immediately to the Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry but was unable to reach agreement on a reporting date (see appendix 10 for a statement of reasons for referral).

3. The committee recommends that the following bills not be referred to committees:

Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment (Land Scheduling) Bill 2018

Australian Research Council Amendment (Ensuring Research Independence) Bill 2018

Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Amendment (Great Australian Bight) Bill 2018

Halal Certification Transitional Authority Bill 2018

Sex Discrimination Amendment (Removing Discrimination Against Students) Bill 2018

Social Security Commission Bill 2018 [No. 2]

Treasury Laws Amendment (Strengthening Corporate and Financial Sector Penalties) Bill 2018.

4. The committee deferred consideration of the following bills to its next meeting:

Australian Cannabis Agency Bill 2018

Commonwealth Registers Bill 2018

Treasury Laws Amendment (Registries Modernisation and Other Measures) Bill 2018

Business Names Registration (Fees) Amendment (Registries Modernisation) Bill 2018

Corporations (Fees) Amendment (Registries Modernisation) Bill 2018 National Consumer Credit Protection (Fees) Amendment (Registries Modernisation) Bill 2018

Customs Tariff Amendment (Craft Beer) Bill 2018

Customs Amendment (Peru-Australia Free Trade Agreement Implementation) Bill 2018

Customs Tariff Amendment (Peru-Australia Free Trade Agreement Implementation) Bill 2018

Defence Legislation Amendment Bill 2018

Major Sporting Events (Indicia and Images) Protection Amendment Bill 2018

National Integrity Commission Bill 2018 [No. 2]

Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Amendment (Regulations References) Bill 2018

Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage (Regulatory Levies) Amendment (Regulations References) Bill 2018

Parliamentary Service Amendment (Post-election Report) Bill 2018

Sex Discrimination and Marriage Legislation Amendment (Protecting Supporters of Traditional Marriage) Bill 2018

Social Services Legislation Amendment (Ending the Poverty Trap) Bill 2018

Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Amendment Bill 2018

Treasury Laws Amendment (2018 Measures No. 6) Bill 2018 Excise Tariff Amendment (Supporting Craft Brewers) Bill 2018

Treasury Laws Amendment (Combating Illegal Phoenixing) Bill 2018

Treasury Laws Amendment (Tax Integrity and Other Measures No. 3) Bill 2018.

5. The committee considered the following bill but was unable to reach agreement (see appendix 11 for statements of reasons for proposed referral):

Treasury Laws Amendment (Prohibiting Energy Market Misconduct) Bill 2018.

(David Bushby)

Chair

6 December 2018

Appendix 1

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Amendment (Strengthening Governance and Transparency) Bill 2018

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

Content of the Bill may raise governance issues for Indigenous Organisations, Increase costs of compliance, and unnecessarily infringe of service delivery for remote disadvantaged communities.

Possible submissions or evidence from:

National Congress, members of the Redfern Collation, Land Councils

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee

Possible hearing date(s):

To be determined by the committee

Possible reporting date:

February 11th 2019

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Corporations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander) Amendment (Strengthening Governance and Transparency) Bill 2018

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

Impact of changes on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander corporations

Possible submissions or evidence from:

National Congress of Australia's First Peoples, Aboriginal organisations

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee

Possible hearing date(s):

Possible reporting date:

February 11th 2019

Appendix 2

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Export Finance and Insurance Corporation Amendment (Support for Infrastructure Financing) Bill 2018

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

Ensure proper scrutiny of the legislation and to allow key stakeholders an opportunity to provide views.

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Austrade

Exporters

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee

Possible hearing date (s) :

To be determined by the committee

Possible reporting date:

6 February, 2019

Appendix 3

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Future Drought Fund Bill 2018 and Future Drought Fund (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2018

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

To investigate the terms on which the bill details as to how the Future Drought Fund will be managed and invested by the Board.

To scrutinise the development of the Drought Resilience Funding Plan.

To scrutinise the adequacy of the Fund's earnings for the funding of nominated drought strategies, including

Research, development and innovation;

Infrastructure projects;

Adoption of technology and;

Improved environmental and natural resource management.

Any other related matters.

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Department of Agriculture and Water Resources

Department of Industry and Science

Department of Infrastructure

Department of Finance

National Farmers' Federation

Farmers for Climate Change Action

State and Territory signatories to the Intergovernmental on National Drought Program reform.

Research and Development Corporations

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Senate Finance and Public Administration Legislation Committee

Possible hearing date(s):

To be determined by the committee

Possible reporting date:

8 February 2019

Appendix 4

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Galilee Basin (Coal Prohibition) Bill 2018

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

The impacts to the climate, groundwater and surface water, Australia's natural environment, human health and infrastructure if the Galilee basin is opened up for mining and the coal is burnt.

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Australian Conservation Foundation, The Australia Institute, Australian Youth Climate Coalition, North Queensland Conservation Council, CSIRO, Independent Scientific Committee on Coal and Coal Seam Gas, Global Change Institute (University of Queensland), Minerals Council of Australia, Queensland Resources Council, Agforce, Wangan and Jagalingou Traditional Owners Council, Law Council of Australia, Australian Network of Environmental Defenders Offices, Queensland Tourism Council.

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Environment and Communications Committee

Possible hearing date(s):

dates during week 14 -18 January 2019, week 4-8 February 2019

Possible reporting date:

Wednesday 13th February 2019

Appendix 5

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Lower Tax Bill 2018

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

Whether there is a case for each of the tax reductions and abolitions, in the context of larger reductions in government spending.

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Parliamentary Budget Office re the costings of both tax cuts and spending cuts;

Treasury, ATO and Border Force;

business groups (ACCI, BCA, AIG), unions (ACTU, CPSU) and ACOSS;

think tanks, lobbyists and consultancies (IPA, CIS, CIE, Deloitte, Grattan, Australia

Institute, Per Capita, GetUp)

motoring organisations re fuel and luxury car tax (AAA, FCAI);

petroleum extraction industry re crude oil duty abolition (APPEA);

alcohol industry re alcohol tax (Alcohol Beverages Australia);

tobacco industry re tobacco tax (British American, Philip Morris, Imperial);

Health Department;

Tourism industry re passenger movement charge (TTF);

Banking industry re major bank levy (ABA, NAB, Westpac, CommBank, ANZ,

Macquarie).

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Economics Legislation Committee.

Possible hearing date(s):

11 February 2019, 15 February 2015, or the weeks of 29 January, 4 February or 25 February.

Possible reporting date:

2 April 2019.

Appendix 6

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Migration Amendment (Streamlining Visa Processing) Bill 2018

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

The complex nature of the Migration Act and the impact any changes on visa conditions may have on people seeking a visa, jobs, Australia's migration system, and tourism amongst other things warrants further consultation and investigation

Stakeholders have been vocal in raising their concerns about unintended consequences of changes to visa conditions and requirements.

Understanding the purpose and intent of the legislation and any subsequent legislative instruments — namely the visa classes and people it is intended to captured by the provisions in the Bill.

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Department of Home Affairs

Law Council of Australia

Migration Institute of Australia

Legal Aid

The Federation of Ethnic Communities' Councils of Australia {FECCA)

Australian Human Rights Commission

Australian Lawyers for Human Rights

Community and Public Sector Union

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee

Possible hearing date(s):

To be determined by the committee

Possible reporting date:

25 February 2019

Appendix 7

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

National Disability Insurance Scheme Amendment (Worker Screening Database) Bill 2018

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

Rollout issues with the NDIS and state interaction issues

Possible submissions or evidence from:

National Disability Services

AFDO

CYDA

Brotherhood of St Laurence

State governments

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Senate Community Affairs Legislation Committee

Possible hearing date(s):

To be determined by the committee

Might be able to be done on the papers — but one short hearing is probably advisable

Possible reporting date:

8 February 2018

Appendix 8

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Parliamentary Joint Committee on the Australia Fund 2018

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

To consider the merits of forming a joint committee as set out in the bill for the formation and management of an Australia Fund.

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Australian farmers (who have experienced drought), Fire Services, Financial institutions, Councils responsible for housing in the aftermath of disasters.

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Economics Committee.

Possible hearing date(s):

Possible reporting date:

03/04/2019

Appendix 9

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Supporting Retirement Incomes) Bill 2018

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

Complexity of Schedule 1: The change to the means test for pooled lifetime income stream products needs to be better understood and stakeholders, including the industry super sector, needs to be able to comment on the bill.

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Industry Super Australia

COTA

National Seniors

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Senate Economics Legislation Committee

Possible hearing date(s):

To be determined by the committee

NOTE — hearings are not required — the complex and technical issues can likely be dealt with on the papers.

Possible reporting date:

11 February 2019

Appendix 10

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Treasury Laws Amendment (Consumer Data Right) Bill 2018

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

To determine the consequences of the proposed data framework and understand the impacts across the multiple sectors affected.

To obtain clarity on the interaction of the legislation (along with the ACCC Rules Framework and Data Standards) with other legislation and instruments e.g. Australian Privacy Principles.

Significant stakeholder concerns about aspects of the bill in relation to data access, small business cyber capabilities, level of informed consumer consent, appropriate powers with regulators and potential data related fees.

Possible submissions or evidence from:

CHOICE

Consumer Policy Research Centre

Treasury

ACCC

Data 61

Australian Banking Association

Energy Australia

Australian Strategic Policy Institute

Business Council of Australia

AGL

Australian Financial Markets Association

Australian Retail Credit Association

Energy Consumers Australia

Insurance Council of Australia

Optus

Telstra

Data Republic

Financial Rights Legal Centre

Communications Alliance

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Senate Economics Legislation Committee

Possible hearing date(s):

To be determined by the Committee

Possible reporting date:

Monday 18 March 2019

Appendix 11

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Treasury Laws Amendment (Prohibiting Energy Market Misconduct) Bill 2018

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

Major government intervention in the market.

Potential for divestment powers to be spread to other areas of the economy.

Risks of this government intervention causing sovereign risk, stymieing investment and increasing power prices.

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Business Council of Australia

Australian Energy Council

Australian Industry Group

Energy Networks Australia

Energy Users Association of Australia

Clean Energy Council

Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry

Treasury

Department of Environment and Energy

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Senate Economics Legislation Committee

Possible hearing date(s):

To be determined by the Committee

Possible reporting date:

Monday 18 March 2019

SELECTION OF BILLS COMMITTEE

Proposal to refer a bill to a committee

Name of bill:

Treasury Laws Amendment (Prohibiting Energy Market Misconduct) Bill 2018

Reasons for referral/principal issues for consideration:

To understand the implications of the new prohibited market conduct provisions, particularly on prices and investment.

Possible submissions or evidence from:

Energy companies

Industry representatives

Consumer advocates Trade unions

Economists

Committee to which bill is to be referred:

Economics

Possible hearing date(s):

February 2019

Senator WILLIAMS: I move:

That the report be adopted.

Senator URQUHART (Tasmania—Opposition Whip in the Senate) (11:46): I will move the amendment circulated in the name of Senator Collins in the chamber. In addition to that amendment, there is another section, and I'll read that out. It's to do with part (c). It says, 'In respect to the National Integrity Commission Bill 2018'—

The PRESIDENT: Senator Urquhart, we don't appear to have the amendment. Is this an amendment to an amendment or an amendment to the report? I was going to call Senator Ruston, but she deferred to you to move an amendment.

Senator URQUHART: It's an amendment to the report.

The PRESIDENT: Okay, what I'll do is I'll let the minister move the government's amendment, and then we'll come to you in case yours is amending theirs. Senator Ruston.

Senator RUSTON (South Australia—Assistant Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (11:47): I move the following amendments:

At the end of the motion, add "and, in respect of:

(a) the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Removing Discrimination Against Students) Bill 2018, the bill and all circulated amendments to the bill be referred to the Education and Employment Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 11 February 2019;

(b) the Treasury Laws Amendment (Consumer Data Right) Bill 2018, the bill be referred to the Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 11 February 2019; and

(c) the Treasury Laws Amendment (Prohibiting Energy Market Misconduct) Bill 2018, the bill be referred to the Economics Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 11 February 2019".

Senator Bernardi: Just as a means of clarification, what motion are we actually considering now?

The PRESIDENT: We are considering the motion to adopt the Selection of Bills Committee report. Senator Ruston has just moved an amendment to that report in the terms that she just read out.

Senator Bernardi: Thank you.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Ruston, having looked at these, I think provision (a)—

Senator URQUHART (Tasmania—Opposition Whip in the Senate) (11:48): Sorry, before I deal with the one that you've got in front of you with (a), (b), (c) and (d) on it, I have another one.

The PRESIDENT: Is it an amendment to the amendment?

Senator URQUHART: Yes, it's an amendment to the amendment. This one is in the name of Senator Pratt. I move:

In respect of part (a) omit "Education and Employment Legislation Committee", substitute "Legal and Constitutional References Committee".

The PRESIDENT: What I will do, unless people wish to speak to that, is put the amendment moved by Senator Urquhart to paragraph (a) of the amendment moved by Senator Ruston. Is everyone clear on that? The effect of this would be that, rather than referring that bill and amendments to the Education and Employment Legislation Committee, it would go instead under the terms of Senator Urquhart's amendment to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee.

Senator BERNARDI (South Australia) (11:49): Just by way of clarification, it says, 'at the end of the motion'. It's not at the end of paragraph (a). It says Senator Pratt says, 'at the end of the motion'. That means that that would contradict paragraph (a) in the motion itself.

The PRESIDENT: I have not been blessed with a hard copy of this. I was going by what was read out.

Senator Bernardi: No, and clearly not much thought went into this by those who have cooked it up, but I'm just making the point that it contradicts.

Senator URQUHART (Tasmania—Opposition Whip in the Senate) (11:50): Maybe if I can clarify: because the government has moved an amendment, we're now amending the government's amendment.

Senator BERNARDI (South Australia) (11:50): Unfortunately, that may be Senator Urquhart's intention, but the amendment says, 'at the end of the motion, add', and that means that you would add it to the amendment.

The PRESIDENT: I've just been advised by the Clerk that the effect of this amendment as currently circulated, Senator Urquhart, would be to send the bills and amendments to both committees, not to replace the Education and Employment Legislation Committee with the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee.

Senator Urquhart: We haven't seen the government's amendments to be able to then add our amendments. Are we able to have a copy of the government's amendments?

The PRESIDENT: Yes. I was not aware that you didn't have them. I've been informed they have been circulated; there are obviously a few flying around.

Senator Urquhart: Can we have a copy so that we are very clear with what we're dealing with?

Senator BERNARDI (South Australia) (11:51): May I be able to assist further?

The PRESIDENT: Always, Senator Bernardi.

Senator BERNARDI (South Australia) (11:51): I have copies of both of the amendments. It may be that Senator Pratt should reconsider her amendment to amend it and maybe come back to the chamber after we've discussed or voted on the minister's amendment. That would probably be most prudent.

The PRESIDENT: Because we're seeking to amend an amendment, it would be harder to come back to, so I'm happy to give—

Senator Bernardi interjecting—

The PRESIDENT: I appreciate that, but I'm going to give the whip a moment here.

Senator BERNARDI: What we're doing is delaying the ability to discuss the motions that are on the Notice Paper already.

The PRESIDENT: I appreciate that.

Senator BERNARDI: I think it's unfair to those crossbench senators in particular, who have a number of motions to consider, given we're time limited.

The PRESIDENT: I am sure we can proceed through this.

Senator URQUHART (Tasmania—Opposition Whip in the Senate) (11:52): To be very clear now, I have actually got the government's amendments in front of me. I apologise I didn't have them before. The proposal is now: I would like to omit from paragraph (a) 'Education and Employment Legislation Committee', and substitute 'Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee'.

Senator BERNARDI (South Australia) (11:52): Again, I think that should be circulated in writing in the chamber.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Bernardi, for the operation of the chamber, I think that's a relatively simple amendment.

Senator Bernardi interjecting—

The PRESIDENT: No. The provision here is to replace the reference to 'Education and Employment Legislation Committee' with 'Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee'. I'm going to put that proposed amendment to the amendment moved by Senator Ruston.

The question is that the amendment moved by Senator Urquhart to the amendment to the Selection of Bills committee report moved by Senator Ruston be agreed to. For clarity, the effect of the amendment, if passed, is that the Sex Discrimination Amendment (Removing Discrimination Against Students) Bill 2018 and all circulated amendments will be referred to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee. If the amendment is lost, it will stand in its original form and be referred to the Education and Employment Legislation Committee.

Senator Ian Macdonald: Did you say the legislation committee, which is where the bills go to?

The PRESIDENT: I understand the effect of this amendment is to send those bills I mentioned to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee.

Senator Ian Macdonald: That's outrageous. Bills go to the legislation committee.

The PRESIDENT: We've had the opportunity for debate. I have to put the motion.

The PRESIDENT (12:02): (In division) Senators, I'm not going to call this division until we resolve the matter that was being voted on. I'll call Senator Cormann, and I think we should all heed Senator Bernardi's entreaties of a few minutes ago that these things need to be circulated in writing.

Senator CORMANN (Western Australia—Minister for Finance and the Public Service, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (12:02): (In division)I seek leave to make a short statement.

The PRESIDENT: Leave is granted.

Senator Wong interjecting—

The PRESIDENT: Can I outline the situation from the chair. There was a circulated amendment that had the words 'references committee' in it. As Senator Bernardi pointed out, that amendment was inconsistent. We had to deal with the amendment verbally and have it rewritten. When it was read out, the word 'references' was not used.

Senator CORMANN: If I could speak: essentially, the reason I think we need to pause for a moment is that the chair of the Senate Legal and Constitutional References Committee, Senator Pratt, was interjecting during the division to our side of the chamber that the intention was to refer this bill to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee. I think there are several of our senators on this side who very clearly heard Senator Pratt, who is the chair of the references committee, point out to the chamber that it was not going to her committee but was going, as it should appropriately, to the legislation committee. If it was the intention of the opposition to initiate a referral to the references committee then I find that very, very disappointing, indeed, because instead of resolving legislation in the usual way this is essentially further politicising something that should be managed in a consensus fashion, which is what the government is prepared to do. This is legislation. It should appropriately go to a legislation committee, and that is of course what Senator Pratt, the chair of the references committee seemed to think. I understood, based on previous discussions among parties, that the question was whether it should go to the education legislation committee or to the legal and constitutional legislation committee, but I think there was some Labor Party initiated confusion in relation to this.

Senator WONG (South Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (12:04): (In division)I'm happy to provide some indication. The reference is to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee.

Senator Cormann interjecting—

Senator WONG: Senator Cormann, if you want to use interjections as the basis of asserting a party's position, I'm very happy to do so. Can I make the point so that the chamber, and I thank those who've supported it—

Senator Ian Macdonald interjecting—

Senator WONG: No; we need to proceed.

Senator Ian Macdonald interjecting—

Senator WONG: Can I just be clear: this is the committee to which these issues were previously referred. They have already done the work ahead of the Sex Discrimination Act discussion that we had this week. We have put forward an amendment and, if the Senate supports it, we'd be grateful.

Senator Ian Macdonald interjecting—

The PRESIDENT: I will come to you, Senator Macdonald. In my recollection, when this amendment was moved verbally, the word 'references' was not used. That has probably caused the confusion. Senator Bernardi rightly pointed out that this may happen.

Senator Bernardi interjecting—

The PRESIDENT: You say, 'I told you so', quite rightly. That is the point of the confusion. Senator Macdonald, I will call you and then I will come to you, Senator Pratt. Are you seeking leave to make a statement, Senator Macdonald?

Senator IAN MACDONALD (Queensland) (12:05): (In division) Yes, I'm seeking leave the same way the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate sought leave.

The PRESIDENT: Leave is granted.

Senator IAN MACDONALD: I am the chairman of the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee. We're very happy to deal with that, as we deal with all other bills referred by this chamber. Senator Wong used the argument that the references committee had already dealt with the matter. Of course, clearly they didn't. The references committee dealt with a referral by, as it turned out, the majority of the Senate to the references committee of not this bill but of a similar issue.

Mr President, if this Senate is to have any credibility whatsoever, we have to follow the rule since time immemorial—well, since the two committees were created—that all bills are referred to the legislation committees, which were set up specifically to look at legislation. The references committees were set up to look at anything vaguely in the area of legal and constitutional affairs that the parliament might decide the references committee should refer to.

This is an outrageous breach not only of the by-laws of the Senate but also of the principles and spirit of the Senate dealing with the executive's actions. The executive put forward these bills and private senators put forward these bills, and they're always been referred to the legislation committee, not to the references committee.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Wong, on a point of order? Leave was granted for him to make a statement, Senator Wong.

Senator Wong: For how long?

The PRESIDENT: He sought leave to make a statement and he was granted leave.

Senator Wong: I ask that you move on, Mr President.

Government senators interjecting—

Senator Wong: The motion has been voted on and we need to move to discovery. Senator Bernardi and others have motions.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Wong, if someone seeks leave to make a statement and that leave is granted, I have no choice; that is a choice of the Senate. Senator Macdonald.

Senator IAN MACDONALD: Thank you, Mr President. I had almost finished my contribution when Senator Wong interrupted. She didn't raise a point of order; as is her wont, she just gets up and talks and thinks that different rules apply to her. When she spoke, I remind you, Mr President, she didn't even seek leave to make a statement; she just made a statement. It's an ongoing approach of the leader of the Labor Party in the Senate to simply believe that the rules of the Senate apply to everybody except her. What you've just seen there is typical of the CFMMEU bullying you get from the current Leader of the Opposition in the Senate.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Bernardi, on a point of order?

Senator Bernardi: No, I was going to seek leave to speak. I thought Senator Macdonald was winding up.

The PRESIDENT: Senator Macdonald, have you concluded?

Senator IAN MACDONALD: I think I've made the point, Mr President. My speech was sought by leave, and it wasn't time limited. Senator Wong just got up and started talking, as she does—because the rules don't apply to her; there are special rules for CFMMEU people who understand how the CFMMEU operate! What you just saw and what this motion represents is a complete disregard for the rules and for the law. No wonder the CFMMEU that Senator Wong used to belong to is out there now saying publicly, 'The laws of the land do not apply to us'—because their representative in this chamber has the same view on the Senate rules.

The PRESIDENT: I am going to call Senator Cormann. He has precedence.

Senator CORMANN (Western Australia—Minister for Finance and the Public Service, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (12:09): (In division) Just to assist the chamber, I do believe that there was a level of confusion because—

Opposition senators interjecting—

The PRESIDENT: Order! Senator Cormann is seeking leave to make a statement. Is leave granted?

An opposition senator: For one minute.

The PRESIDENT: One minute, Senator Cormann.

Senator CORMANN: I am just going to ask a question—it is not going to be a long statement—to assist the chamber. There was a level of confusion, including because of a contribution by Senator Pratt during the division, as to whether it was going to the legislation or references committee. There is only one matter that is relevant to me now. If that had been very clearly understood, would any senator in this chamber have voted differently? If the answer is yes then I believe the vote would have to be put again. If the answer is no then the Senate can move on.

Senator BERNARDI (South Australia) (12:10): (In division) I seek leave to make a short statement.

The PRESIDENT: Leave is granted for one minute.

Senator BERNARDI: I note that in the notice of motion, Senator Patrick refers this bill to the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee. Senator Patrick needs to understand that the Selection of Bills Committee reference will take precedence over his motion. It's only prudent for this chamber to recommit the vote.

The PRESIDENT: For the good order of the chamber, I ask the question put by Senator Cormann: if there was any confusion that would result in what people know now changing their vote on the motion to refer those bills to the legal and constitutional affairs references committee, not the legislation committee, does any senator wish to indicate they would like the vote to be re-put, because their vote would change?

Senator Leyonhjelm: Are you referring to all three bills or just the sex discrimination bill?

The PRESIDENT: The sex discrimination bill and associated amendments.

Senator Leyonhjelm: You did say 'these bills'.

The PRESIDENT: I meant 'the amendments'—my apologies. I will call the division.

Question agreed to.

Senator URQUHART (Tasmania—Opposition Whip in the Senate) (12:11): I move to amend an amendment to the government amendment.

The PRESIDENT: Which?

Senator URQUHART: In paragraph (b). It's just an omission of a date. I move:

Omit '11 February 2019' in paragraph (b) and substitute '18 March 2019'. In paragraph (c), omit '11 February 2019' and substitute '18 March 2019'.

I ask for the question to be divided on.

The PRESIDENT: The question is that Senator Urquhart's amendment to paragraph (b) of the government's amendment be agreed to.

The PRESIDENT (12:18): I will now put the same amendment to paragraph (c) of the government amendment, as moved by Senator Urquhart, to change the reporting date of 11 February to 18 March.

Senator FIFIELD (Victoria—Manager of Government Business in the Senate and Minister for Communications and the Arts) (12:19): I move a further amendment in relation to paragraph (a):

Paragraph (a), as amended, omit “Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee”, substitute “Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee”.

Senator WONG (South Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (12:19): On the motion, I don't wish to speak long and we will not call a division if Senator Griff confirms that he is going to change his vote for the third time on this issue. If that is the case and he wishes—

A government senator interjecting—

Senator WONG: Sorry, maybe the second time. This is effectively the recommittal that—

Senator McGrath: You are a bully!

Senator WONG: No, I'm serious. If he tells us that he wants to support this, it is effectively a recommittal of the motion that was previously supported, but, in the interests of making sure we move on, I will indicate that Labor obviously has a different position but won't be calling a division on this.

Senator PATRICK (South Australia) (12:20): I can confirm we want this to go to the legislation committee. That is the correct place for a bill to go. There was a lot of confusion in the last 10 or 15 minutes because of late motions and motions that were varied verbally. The proper place for this to go is to the legislation committee.

The PRESIDENT: The question is that paragraph (a) as amended, which replaces the word 'references' with 'legislation' so that it goes to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee, be agreed to.

Question agreed to.

The PRESIDENT: I'm now going to put the amendment moved by Senator Ruston as amended through that series of votes.

Senator SIEWERT (Western Australia—Australian Greens Whip) (12:22): Are you talking about (a), (b) and (c)?

The PRESIDENT: Yes, (a), (b) and (c) now as amended.

Senator SIEWERT: We would like to have a separate vote on (a) to (b) and (c), please.

The PRESIDENT: The question is that paragraph (a) of Senator Ruston's amendment as amended by the Senate be agreed to.

Question agreed to.

The PRESIDENT: The question is that paragraphs (b) and (c) of Senator Ruston's amendment as amended by the Senate be agreed to.

Question agreed to.

Senator URQUHART (Tasmania—Opposition Whip in the Senate) (12:22): I'm now talking to the amendment to be moved by Senator Collins. I'll just make it clear that I'm not moving paragraphs (a) and (b) of the government amendments, but (c) and (d) on the sheet that's been circulated.

The PRESIDENT: Paragraphs (c) and (d) of the amendments circulated under the name of Senator Collins—

Senator RUSTON (South Australia—Assistant Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (12:24): Which one is Senator Collins working from?

The PRESIDENT: The one with (c) and (d) is the one I'm working off. The one with four paragraphs that refers to the National Integrity Commission Bill 2018 (No. 2) and the National Integrity (Parliamentary Standards) Bill 2018—is that correct?

Senator SIEWERT (Western Australia—Australian Greens Whip) (12:23): We do not want to refer our ICAC Bill. I've got two copies of Senator Collins's amendments. I don't know which copy we're working from. One has four paragraphs; one has three.

The PRESIDENT: I understand we're working off the one with four paragraphs, and we're only working on paragraphs (c) and (d).

Senator LEYONHJELM (New South Wales) (12:23): There is no fourth paragraph on anything that's been circulated near my desk. There are only three.

The PRESIDENT: I understand two documents have been circulated. I can only go by what's on my desk.

Senator Urquhart interjecting—

The PRESIDENT: I don't think we should do this verbally after what just happened.

Senator URQUHART (Tasmania—Opposition Whip in the Senate) (12:24): By leave, could we come back after question time? This has been circulated, but, to give everyone an opportunity to have a look at it, is that acceptable?

The PRESIDENT: Would the Senate prefer to come back to this matter of selection of bills after question time? The government has indicated it would prefer to deal with this now. I will put the question with respect to paragraphs (c) and (d) of the amendments listed to be moved by Senator Collins.

Senator SIEWERT (Western Australia—Australian Greens Whip) (12:24): We would like to put (c) and (d) together, because (c) refers our bill. We don't want it referred, and so we want to put that separately if the ALP are insisting on moving that amendment.

The PRESIDENT: I will put paragraph (c) of the amendments listed under Senator Collins's name.

Question agreed to.

The PRESIDENT: The question is now to agree to paragraph (d) of the amendment listed under the name of Senator Collins and moved by Senator Urquhart.

Question agreed to.

The PRESIDENT: We will now turn to the original motion, to adopt the Selection of Bills Committees report as amended by the Senate.

Question agreed to.

Senator RUSTON (South Australia—Assistant Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (12:30): At the request of Senator Cormann, I move:

(1) That the following matter be referred to the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters established in the next Parliament, for commencement of a review on the second anniversary of the Royal Assent for the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Act 2018:

A review of the operation of the amendments, dealing with foreign donations and related matters, made by the Electoral Legislation Amendment (Electoral Funding and Disclosure Reform) Act 2018.

The review will consider:

(a) the operation of the amendments during the federal election immediately following the enactment of the amendments;

(b) the clarity of public guidance products issued by regulators;

(c) how the Bill's objectives can continue to be achieved in the most effective way while minimising red tape; and

(d) any impacts from the amendments that are relevant to issue-based advocacy.

(2) That the committee report within 6 months of receiving the reference.

I seek leave to make a short statement.

The PRESIDENT: Leave is granted for one minute.

Senator RUSTON: The government agrees to initiate a post-implementation review of the recently enacted ban on foreign electoral donations as part of discussions to secure passage of the bill that gave effect to this ban. The wording of the proposed referral was agreed by members of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters last week. This motion would have the effect of requiring a post-implementation review to occur during the next parliament and requires JSCEM to have particular regard to how the new rules operate in practice during the 2019 federal election. Because this review commences after the next election, the referral to JSCEM is by way of a Senate motion that has continuing effect into the next parliament.

Senator CHISHOLM (Queensland) (12:31): I seek leave to make a short statement.

The PRESIDENT: Leave is granted for one minute.

Senator CHISHOLM: The opposition will be supporting this motion. This motion represents a key commitment secured by Labor's shadow special minister of state, Senator Farrell, during the recent debate on foreign donations legislation. This motion will guarantee a review of the practical application of the recently passed foreign donation laws, ensuring advocacy work is protected and the laws operate as intended. The opposition thanks the government for upholding this commitment, and we commend the referral to the Senate.

Senator LEYONHJELM (New South Wales) (12:32): I seek leave to make a brief statement.

The PRESIDENT: Leave is granted for one minute.

Senator LEYONHJELM: This motion makes no provision for participating members on the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters. Previous inquiries have had to have amendments put through both houses subsequently to allow participating members. I would ask the Senate that that factor be addressed now, rather than coming back to it later.

The PRESIDENT: I'm going to put the motion that is before the Senate. The question is that the motion moved by Senator Ruston be agreed to.

Question agreed to.

Senator GRIFF (South Australia) (12:43): I, and also on behalf of Senator Farrell, move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes that:

(i) according to the 2016 National Drug Strategy Household Survey:

      (A) 6.3% or 1.3 million Australians over the age of 14 reported having used methamphetamines,

      (B) among recent methamphetamine users, more than half (57%) reported using crystal methamphetamine,

      (C) of those who had used methamphetamines, including ice, in the past 12 months, 20.4% used these drugs weekly or daily,

      (D) rates of methamphetamine use were 2.5 times as high among people living in remote or very remote areas, compared to rates among those living in major cities or regional areas, and

      (E) young people aged 18-24 years old living in rural areas are more likely to report recent drug use, compared to their city counterparts,

(ii) on 23 November 2018, the Minister for Health, Mr Hunt, announced a $20 million funding package to boost drug and alcohol treatment services in South Australia, particularly in regional and rural areas,

(iii) this funding will be available over three years and will be provided as grants of up to $2.5 million in locations specified as 'areas of need', comprising the Fleurieu region, Peterborough and the Mid North, Port Augusta, Ceduna, Murray Bridge, Playford, Port Adelaide and Onkaparinga,

(iv) all other areas of South Australia, including Mount Gambier, have been locked out of applying for this funding,

(v) there is no detox service offered in the Mount Gambier Hospital,

(vi) rehabilitation facilities are offered only in shared houses or family houses,

(vii) clients wishing to detox must travel nearly 500km to Adelaide to do so,

(viii) counselling staff are under-resourced with some seeing up to 7 clients per day, leaving little time for follow-up letters for their clients to doctors, lawyers or other relevant ongoing referrals, and

(ix) the wait time for a person to see a drug or alcohol counsellor in the Mount Gambier region is up to three to four weeks; and

(b) calls on the Federal Government to table in the Senate on 20 December 2018 the information it relied on to make the decision to exclude Mount Gambier-based services from applying for this funding.

Senator RUSTON (South Australia—Assistant Minister for International Development and the Pacific) (12:44): I seek leave to make a short statement.

The PRESIDENT: Leave is granted for one minute.

Senator RUSTON: The government will comply with this order. The areas of need were determined in consultation with key stakeholders across South Australia. Centre Alliance have been extensively consulted on the government's approach to this increased investment in drug and alcohol support for South Australia.

Question agreed to.

The PRESIDENT (12:46): Senator Fierra—

Senator Wong interjecting—

Senator Ian Macdonald interjecting—

The PRESIDENT: She was earlier, but I have to grant the leader of the opposition precedence.

Senator Cormann interjecting—

The PRESIDENT: Senator Cormann, I don't time people jumping up. I have to call the Leader of the Opposition.

Senator WONG (South Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (12:47): I move:

That the question be put.

A division having been called and the bells being rung—

The PRESIDENT: Cancel the division. I have been advised by the Clerk that, under the provisions of the limitation of debate order passed by the Senate, closure on the debate cannot be moved, so we will proceed with the debate. Senator Fierravanti-Wells.

Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS (New South Wales) (12:48): Thank you, Mr President. I rise to speak on the Home Affairs Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2018. This is a technical omnibus bill which seeks to strengthen even further the coalition's strong border protection framework.

Schedule 1 amendments provide that when an unlawful noncitizen's removal from Australia is aborted for any reason—for example, refusal of entry by a transit country—and the person needs to be returned to Australia that person can re-enter Australia lawfully without a visa. The amendments will also make it clear that such a person will be taken never to have left the migration zone and will continue to be subject to visa application bars.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator O'Sullivan ): Senator Fierravanti-Wells could I get you to resume your seat for a second. Can senators please leave the chamber quietly so that Senator Fierravanti-Wells can make a contribution.

Senator FIERRAVANTI-WELLS: Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President O'Sullivan. The amendments make it clear that such a person will be taken never to have left the migration zone and will continue to be subject to visa application bars—that is, they cannot apply for certain visas in Australia.

Schedule 2 changes will broaden the channels by which the Department of Home Affairs can provide documents to people, by adding the facility of an online account. It does not limit or remove any of the existing methods. There are other, minor amendments relating to the refund or drawback of duty in circumstances where a person has been paid a refund or drawback that they were not entitled to. Also there are changes to the passenger movement charge regime and other minor technical changes to wording in two provisions of the Customs Act.

However, what is clear is that those opposite will seek to propose amendments that will challenge the effectiveness of our border protection system. Today we are seeing Labor team up with the Greens to give the green light to people smugglers. This is what the people smugglers have been waiting for. Here we have Labor putting at risk our border protection regime. This is an astonishing move by the Leader of the Opposition and those opposite. The last time Labor joined with the Greens on border security, 50,000 people arrived illegally, 8,000 children were placed in detention and, tragically, 1,200 people were drowned at sea. There is nothing compassionate about a policy that will ensure boat arrivals start again.

The advice from our intelligence agencies is very clear: any weakening of our current border protection policies will reopen the people smuggling trade, and we will once again be facing deaths at sea. This government will not allow this to happen. You don't get children off Nauru by putting more children on Nauru. It has been the coalition government's policy. We got all the children out of detention and we have closed 17 detention centres in Australia. In fact, there are more medical staff on Nauru than there are children. Every child who requires specialised medical treatment is getting it and has been transferred without compromising security. We have been doing this quietly and in a very appropriate way.

Therefore, any deal with the Greens would go against everything that Labor has been saying for five years, proving yet again that Bill Shorten and the Labor Party cannot be trusted when it comes to border protection. Remember Kevin Rudd's promises before the 2007 election that they would turn back the boats. The moment he became Prime Minister, the opposite happened. The people smugglers were back in business and we saw the 1,200 deaths at sea—and they're only the ones that we know about.

As Minister for International Development and the Pacific, I have had the opportunity to visit Nauru and to see for myself why Nauru is called the Pleasant Island. Today I would like to outline some of the lies and misrepresentations that those opposite have been peddling about this issue. The people of Nauru are warm, friendly and hospitable, so I find the description of the people of Nauru by those opposite contemptuous and offensive. Nauru has a population of approximately 12,000 people, made up of an indigenous Nauruan majority of about 10,500 people, predominantly of Micronesian origin; about 500 or 600 expats, including Australians, New Zealanders, Chinese, Indians, Filipinos and those from other Pacific island states; and approximately 1,000 asylum seekers and refugees.

Let me outline to those opposite what is actually happening on Nauru. When I visited, I toured Nauru Secondary School and the adjacent learning village site. There are about 10 schools on Nauru and over 3,000 students. Compulsory education begins with preschool. Students study towards a Queensland Certificate of Education, and QCE teachers are based in the Nauru secondary school system. There is also a centre for disabled children and youth of all ages, which I also had the privilege of visiting. The government of Nauru manages all the schools through its Department of Education. All children on Nauru attend schools. There it is no distinction between Nauruans and non-Nauruans. They travel together on the school bus. I actually saw it. There is one road that goes around the island, and we were stopped behind the school bus that stopped and picked up children, irrespective of whether they were Nauruans or non-Nauruans.

Australia contributed $11 million to the construction of buildings at the Nauru Secondary School, which opened in 2010. Since 2010, Australian support to the Nauruan education sector has contributed to increased enrolment rates and qualified teachers and the introduction of a new national curriculum that enables graduating secondary students to receive a Queensland Certificate of Education. We've done school refurbishments and we've constructed a new secondary school.

In 2017-18, Australia finalised an almost $3 million contribution to phase 2 of the Nauru Learning Village, which incorporates all higher education agencies in a single area, including the University of the South Pacific, technical and vocational training and a community library. This new campus, designed specifically for youth and adult education, aligns with Nauru's own TVET strategic plan. Of course, it is also disability-friendly and, again, open to everyone on the island.

I also visited the Nauru Lifeguard Service, which is supported by lifesaving groups here in Australia. Of course swimming is a popular pastime on Nauru, although there are very few suitable locations. It was great to meet the local lifesavers. The service is now part of Nauru's National Emergency Service and employs both Nauruans and refugee residents on its staff.

I spoke to local Nauruan business people, including expats. I was advised by the local bank manager that there are about 8,000 bank accounts in a population of 12,000—that is a considerable number of bank accounts—including hundreds from the refugee cohort. I attended an amazing Anzac Day dawn service attended by a cross-section of the whole island's population.

I visited the Nauru hospital. Following a fire at the hospital in August 2013 that destroyed four of its buildings, Australia contributed $11½ million to the hospital redevelopment project. The project was managed by Australian Border Force and implemented by their contractors. The Department of Immigration and Border Protection and Australian Border Force provided $16 million in funding. Phase 1 comprised the construction of new medical and surgical wings. Phase 2 was completed in 2017 and included new X-ray machines, a CT scanner, a new paediatrics ward, a pathology laboratory, water storage facilities, sewerage treatment and backup power generators and connection to demountable buildings which house dental and pathology laboratories. These facilities are comparable to services that I have seen in Sydney.

DFAT's broader support for the health sector in Nauru is provided in the form of direct grant funding of around $3 million a year to support the Nauru health sector strategy and provision of key health services on the island. We also usually provide advisers through our PACTAM program to assist capacity building on Nauru.

I visited the Nauru community resource centre, an Australian government funded project in partnership with the Nauru Department of Multicultural Affairs. Open to all residents of Nauru, it houses the main offices for the Department of Multicultural Affairs settlement staff, community liaison officers and service providers who assist local and refugee communities and provide a space for community meetings and functions. The centre aims to develop greater collaboration and interaction between Nauruan and refugee communities and is increasingly becoming a site for local community events.

At that time, I spoke with staff of the Australian NGO—non-government organisation—providing support to the government of Nauru to provide case management services to refugees in Nauru, with some staff drawn from the refugee community. I recall the conversation with one young woman who wanted to come to Australia. I explained to her why this was not possible. She told me that people in Australia had told her to wait for the change. And I asked her, 'What do you mean?' And she said, 'Change of government'. So that's the story that the Greens and others are peddling on Nauru: 'Just wait for a change and then you'll be able to come to Australia.' It is clear that those opposite, hell-bent on their own publicity, are giving false hope to people on Nauru. They are creating the impression things can change and they are giving these young people false hope. They are the ones creating the angst. They are the ones playing with the lives of these people and holding out false hope for them. They are the ones distorting the facts and creating the mental angst for their own base political purposes.

What does not emerge is that many in the refugee community are getting on with their lives. They are part of the community. They have started businesses. For example, a young man from Iran started a restaurant from his home, and it has now become a very popular place to eat and meet. Or there are the Iranian ladies who have started nail and beauty shops and now provide services which were not previously available. Many have met local Nauruans, now have families on the island and are well settled. As I drove around the island, I saw for myself what has been provided for the refugee community—often of a standard that is much better than for the local Nauruans. While some of the contractors that I spoke to operated out of the dongas, the new housing was being constructed for the refugee community.

Often those opposite wish to portray children behind wire fences. Well, one of the biggest problems on Nauru has been that dogs roam around the island. Regrettably, the introduction of aggressive dogs into the dog population has resulted in more dog attacks. Indeed, on my visit, a young disabled girl had been mauled by a dog and later died. Fences are crucial for protection purposes.

Many of the local contractors and businesses employ members of the refugee community. All of this highlights the lies that the Greens and their fellow travellers have been perpetrating for years. The false assertions brandished by those opposite that Nauru is a hellhole and it is a place of misery, death and torture that destroys innocent people is blatantly wrong and only used for base political purposes. The Greens assert that Nauru is unsafe for women and children and sending them back would be torture. That is blatantly wrong and only designed to sensationalise the situation and denigrate the people of Nauru.

So it was not surprising to see the article written by Paige Taylor in The Australian of 16 November entitled 'Refugees Pick Nauru Over US'. I want to pick up some crucial facts out of that article. It says:

Forty of the 300 refugees who left Nauru to resettle in the US have contacted the island nation asking to come back because life in America was harder than expected, the Nauruan President has revealed.

The President goes on in this article to talk about life on Nauru. The author of this article was afforded a visit to the island. Indeed, it's interesting to see that Ms Taylor, who has written about and covered asylum seeker issues for years and witnessed many things as part of this, has been able to write this piece in a very independent manner. In fairness to the people of Nauru, many of whom I met during my time as Minister for International Development and the Pacific, it is very important that this be said about their island home. In this article the President of Nauru talks about the benefits that have come to his island home as a consequence not only of the refugee processing centre. He states that regional refugee processing has outweighed the hurt of being labelled a prison and a hellhole in the international media. He says his people's history of exile and persecution made them sympathetic as a nation to refugees and that claims that the government mistreated or neglected refugees were untrue and painful.

He said, 'We try and understand the situation because there are people that have their own political agendas overseas and want to attack us because of our involvement in the process centre and our partnership with Australia, so we get caught in the middle.' He said, that few people outside Australia understood that refugees move freely around the island, they owned businesses, including a barber shop and a café, and worked for his government and have fallen in love with locals. He then goes on to outline further some of the work that people on the island are doing; indeed, the article gives cogent examples of the Afghan nurse and the paediatrician working at the Nauru hospital. It shows locals. It also looks at other works or other things that the refugees are doing on the island.

Australia is a country of migration and, since World War II, we have welcomed about 7.5 million migrants to this country, including about 850,000 under our humanitarian program. Today we are one of the most culturally diverse yet socially cohesive nations on earth. Our success as a migration country has been because we have had an ordered migration program. Order in migration and migration processes is vitally important. It is fundamental to the security and stability of any country; therefore, it is important that you do have strict rules on migration, about who comes in and out of your country. This is a fundamental issue.

Therefore, I come back to the point that I started my speech on—that is, yet again, we are seeing history repeating itself. Those opposite said before the 2007 election, 'No, no, we're going to stop the boats; we're going to turn boats back,' and then we saw their legacy—50,000 illegal people arriving, 8,000 children placed in detention and, tragically, all those deaths at sea. So by doing what they are doing, they are green lighting the people smugglers again. That girl in Nauru was telling me, 'Let's wait for the change,' because they've been told: as soon as the government changes, that is the green light for the people smugglers to be back in business and that's what the amendments of those opposite will do.

Senator STORER (South Australia) (13:08): The crisis surrounding the health and wellbeing of asylum seekers on Nauru and PNG has gone on too long. The United Nations describes the situation as 'dire and untenable'. Doctors Without Borders describe the situation as 'beyond desperate'. We must heed those warnings. Twelve people have died in offshore detention since the regime began five years ago. There are possibly—it's not clear—1,224 people detained on Nauru and PNG and, according to the latest reports, 12 children, pregnant women and unaccompanied minors. The vast majority of these people have been found to be refugees. Many of them have been in these camps for at least five years. A coronial inquest into the death of Hamid Kehazaei, who died after being medevaced to Queensland from PNG in 2014, found his death from septicaemia was preventable and was due to failure to provide appropriate medical treatment and transfer to specialist care.

I also note the revelation from ABC's 7.30 of the existence of a government committee, the Transitory Persons Committee, a body comprised of senior public servants in the Department of Home Affairs. And, according to minutes of a meeting in August last year, one member of the committee noted that the department was coordinating to ensure the new contract with the international health and medical services to provide offshore health care does not mention 'Australian standard'. That would suggest that the department at least considered that care for asylum seekers need not meet Australian medical standards. This is just one argument for supporting the amendment I will put forward with Senator McKim.

According to authoritative reports, there have been two more suicide attempts in Manus in the last 48 hours, and there is little doubt that there will be more. We must act now. Our amendment will minimise this cruel and punitive regime. It will return decisions about the health of asylum seekers to those who should always have been making them in the first place: to relevant and independent doctors rather than public servants and politicians.

The amendment I propose establishes an independent health panel to review the available medical evidence in light of any refusal by the minister to authorise a transfer. In the interests of transparency, the amendment also requires the minister to table notifications in parliament of any transfer for medical or psychiatric reasons. To safeguard the review process, the amendment will add a provision for ministerial discretion to refuse the transfer on medical grounds in any case where the minister reasonably believes that the transfer of the person to Australia would compromise national security.

This is consistent with the perspective of Home Affairs whistleblower Shaun Hanns, a strong believer in border protection and boat turn-backs, that 'acts of kindness', as he has called them, have not led to more boats heading to Australia. He argued that it is demonstrated that the current boat turn-back policy alone is a sufficient deterrent. Nothing changed, for example, in 2014, when nearly half the people who had arrived in Australia between 2013 and 2014 were allowed to stay in the community. Nothing changed in 2016, when the resettlement deal with the US was announced. Hanns pointed out:

What matters to asylum seekers is not what eventually happened to people who got on a boat five years ago.

What matters is what happened to the last boat that made the attempt. And for the past five years that has been a prompt return …

to where it came from.

The approach we are proposing is also what the public wants. A YouGov Galaxy poll conducted by News Corp Sunday papers in October found that 79 per cent of voters want the government to transfer children and their families from Nauru. Removing asylum seekers from offshore detention was also identified by the member for Wentworth as one of the key reasons for her by-election victory. I would like to thank the member for Wentworth for working with me to bring this amendment before the parliament. It is proof, I believe, of the valuable role independents can play in our parliament. She has shouldered much of the burden of negotiating this amendment, ably supported by the excellent staff in her office.

I would also like to thank Labor, the Greens, Centre Alliance and the crossbench for their courtesy and consideration in this process. I recognise it is a difficult issue, and I applaud their courage in stepping up to support this initiative. I also acknowledge that, for a decade or more, the Greens have been at the forefront of efforts to bring offshore detention to an end. I thank Senator McKim for co-sponsoring the amendments and the motion required for this amendment to be considered. The time has come for all parliamentarians of goodwill to unite to bring an end to this crisis. Thank you.

Senator BERNARDI (South Australia) (13:13): The Home Affairs Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2018 was, relatively speaking, a relatively innocuous piece of housekeeping that was designed to support Australia's world-leading successful border protection policies. It is no secret that there are those in this chamber, in the other place and out there in the broader community who don't like these successful border protection policies, who think we should be pursuing a different case.

Senator Storer belled the cat then, when he said the Greens are at the forefront of stopping detention for unlawful entrants. That's what worries me: the Greens are at the forefront of it. We know how the Greens respond to the people-smuggling industry. To be frank, they don't give a hoot. They do not give a hoot. They have given excuse after excuse for why it's okay for people to travel through multiple countries, pay tens of thousands of dollars to people to put them in a leaky boat, risk their lives at sea and lose their lives at sea. The Greens think that's okay. Senator Storer, I'm sorry—I say through you, Mr Acting Deputy President Sterle—but I cannot under any circumstances think that that is a virtue.

Even worse, when the thousand or so people lost their lives at sea under the Green-Labor alliance, we had the cavalier dismissal of these tragic deaths by the likes of Senator Hanson-Young, who purports to care but then on the public record says, 'Accidents happen; tragedies happen.' She shrugged her shoulders. It's not her fault—'Move along here; there is nothing to see.' Unfortunately, those deaths are inked indelibly on the legislation that was repealed by the Labor-Greens alliance. It is a tragedy and a travesty that, after five or six years of successfully stopping the boats and putting an end to this insidious industry, the crack has been opened up again. And it only needs to be opened up a sliver for the people smugglers to take advantage of the vulnerable who are seeking a better life, part them from their money and put them back on the boats again.

I don't know anybody who doesn't have compassion for those who are unwell and who doesn't have compassion for those who strive for a better life for themselves and their families. But, if a country is not prepared to defend its borders, if a country is not prepared to stand up for an orderly and sensible migration program, including a humanitarian one, it loses its reason for being. A country is united by its borders, if nothing else. It should be united by culture, values and ideas, but it is united by its borders. If you believe it's okay for people to jump the queue—and there is a queue to come to Australia, I can assure you of that—and if you think it's okay to perpetuate and foster a business that smuggles people and encourages them to break the law, I think you're barking mad.

Unfortunately, there are people who are barking mad in politics and in the advocacy space, and now we see them taking a relatively innocuous housekeeping bill and trying to dress it up as some moral debate about taking children off Nauru and Manus Island in the name of some compassion. Let me tell you how that will end up: it will open up the people-smuggling business again. They will say: 'We're open for business. It might take you a bit of time, but we can get there.' And they'll be aided and abetted by people in this place, by a phalanx of doctors who will make all sorts of claims because they're ideologically wedded to an open-borders policy, and it's starting here. I'm appalled. But it gives the Australian people an opportunity to understand what life would be like under a Shorten-Greens dominated government. For all the posturing and all the claims that, 'Nothing will change under us; it will be a fairer, more just system,' you know that underpinning that is always the agenda to leave the door ajar just a little bit—leave it a little bit unguarded to open it up. We're seeing that here today.

I call upon Labor to reject the hijacking of a housekeeping bill in the name of some humanitarian efforts that are using children as pawns in a political game which is unedifying. Let's face the facts: not everyone wants to live on a tropical island paradise. I understand that—not everyone does. But, if you're going to be living on Nauru—I'm not going to demean Nauru or diminish the land or the people as others in this place will do—and the Australian government is educating your children and providing you with accommodation, a safe place to be and freedom to go out and about wherever you like, and is feeding you and providing you with free medical care and attention, that's better than many communities have it in Australia. Yet I don't hear the posturing and I don't hear the condemnation of what's happening in some of our Indigenous communities, where kids are being abused every single day. They're excused by the same people who are claiming to stick up for those who are on Nauru because they've paid the people smugglers. They want to open the people-smuggler system. They want to help a bunch of people over there in Nauru who are being cared for better than the First Australians, in many instances. It's an appalling act of hypocrisy.

We have got to have compassion for what happens in the rest of the world, yes, but shouldn't our primary aim, if we are going to help the most disadvantaged, be to look within our own community first and foremost? If you go to an Indigenous community, you will see higher rates of suicide, mental health issues, substance abuse issues, a lack of jobs and educational opportunities and a lack of health care. You will see abhorrent sexual diseases like syphilis. The only occurrence of them, according to the statistics I have, in children under 10 in this country is in Indigenous communities. Yet the silence is deafening from those who want to stick up for people who are on Nauru through their own actions and who are being cared for better than our First Australians. Spare me the hypocrisy here. It is galling. It is breathtaking.

I don't think the Australian people are being well served on the very last day of this year's parliamentary sittings by having to go through such an unedifying spectacle, where children are being used as pawns in a political game designed to discredit the government. To be frank, the government doesn't need any more assistance in discrediting itself. I see Senator Cormann doesn't like that comment, but the reality is that they've done enormous damage through the revolving door of prime ministers and their policy areas, where they're putting taxes up one day and cutting them the next, and so forth. They're inconsistent. Some of the people there are of questionable judgement and character, but it is what it is. The one thing the government's got right, that it's been consistent on and been advocates for, is defending Australia's borders and the offshore processing regime, which is more humane and more just, and which protects and saves lives, unlike the policies of those on the other side.

Simply through the sheer opportunism of those who want to virtue-signal rather than look at the reality of what we're dealing with, many thousands of lives could be put at risk because this Senate, or the House of Representatives, may leave the national security and border protection laws ajar and outsource Australia's domestic sovereignty, if I can say that—the principles of the Westminster system and the role of executive government and the minister—to unelected doctors. There are any number of doctors who have political views and ideology, and sometimes—sometimes—they trump the Hippocratic oath. Sometimes they do. 'First do no harm' is the Hippocratic oath. Yet you have doctors out there, like Dr Philip Nitschke—until he was disqualified—openly putting people to death. Is he going to be the person who goes to Nauru and determines someone's mental health? He couldn't even determine whether someone was terminally ill or just depressed when he helped kill that poor lady in Darwin all those years ago.

Australia's border protection policies are the envy of the world. Those who laughed at them all those years ago are wishing that they'd enabled them now. If you go to Europe, the open border policies of Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, have done irreparable damage to the German psyche and their way of life; we know that. We also know that, in places like Italy, France, Greece and Turkey, the people-smuggling business has had tragic results. Governments all over the world are saying, 'Hey, Australia managed to get it right.' And just as they're coming to their senses, you find a motley bunch trying to undo the good that has been done.

Our immigration policies in this country have to work in our cultural, social and economic interest. The Australian Conservatives is a party that has a comprehensive policy that was designed to do exactly that. We believe that those who come here choose to come here and must contribute to Australia. If they're in receipt of welfare, they should be expected to repay that over the course of time through the taxation system. We believe that it's no longer appropriate to be bound by a UN refugee convention that was established in the 1950s for a different time and is now being used against us. We believe that we shouldn't resettle those who arrive illegally in this country. There's no doubt further reforms are needed. We need to reform the visa class. We need to reform the processes used to obtain visas—the misuse and abuse of them and the corruption of them, quite frankly, both in this country and abroad, where people are gaming the system, just like some people in politics today want to help alleged refugees to game the system. I don't want to stand for the dismantling of our successful border protection policies. I want to enhance and improve them. I want to improve Australia's national security through reform of our immigration system. That's the platform that the Australian Conservatives will be advocating for for a very long time.

In respect of this particular legislation, I know there are amendments coming. We've got some ourselves. I move the amendment as circulated on sheet 8621:

At the end of the motion, add:

", but the Senate is of the view that:

(a) the government should promptly release the statutory review of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, particularly those aspects relating to the Migration and Refugee Divisions, conducted by the Honourable Ian Callinan AC QC;

(b) the government should take all possible steps to prevent the presentation of late evidence in migration and refugee cases;

(c) only Australian citizens should be given access to legal aid assistance in cases in the Migration and Review Division of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal; and

(d) if legal aid is granted in the Migration and Review Division of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to persons who are not Australian citizens, then the quantum of the grant of legal aid should be recovered via the taxation system in future years".

They're four simple premises. One is:

… the government should promptly release the statutory review of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, particularly those aspects relating to the Migration and Refugee Divisions, conducted by the Honourable Ian Callinan AC QC …

With respect to that, we know that former Justice Callinan was expected to have that report completed at the end of October. I presumed it would have gone to the government by now, but, of course, yesterday the Minister representing the Attorney-General said it hadn't been received. It seems to have been received by TheDaily Telegraph but not by the government and the minister. I'm not sure how that quite works, but sometimes the processes of government confound even me, and I've been around here for a little while. It's absolutely appropriate that the report should be released promptly, and I think the government needs to be held to account for that.

We're also moving, in respect of cases before the Administrative Appeals Tribunal:

… the government should take all possible steps to prevent the presentation of late evidence in migration and refugee cases;

What happens is that the minister of the day will say, 'You're a convicted paedophile or a terrorist or a substantive crook or an Iranian tourist'—I was asked what an Iranian tourist is. They're the people who come here, seek asylum because they're threatened with death in Iran, and then, as soon as they're granted asylum, they go back to Iran for a holiday and then come back here again. That's called the Iranian tourist rort. Let me tell you that we're going to put an end to that. You shouldn't be able to go to the AAT with a deportation order and all of a sudden have taxpayer funded lawyers and advocates all jump in with late evidence to try to put an end to the order. We've got to stop the rorts. It's within the government's purview to do that, and they should do it.

That brings me to the next part of the amendment:

… only Australian citizens should be given access to legal aid assistance in cases in the Migration and Review Division of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal …

Why is it that Australia's taxpayers are being put on the hook and asked to pay for the defence of the indefensible—the paedophiles, the terrorists, the habitual criminals, the Iranian tourists—who are sucking at the taxpayer's teat in order to fund the defence of their own crimes? It's an appalling indictment upon our system. There are many Australians who don't qualify for legal aid and can't afford legal representation, yet, somehow, there is the injustice that aid is being provided to those who aren't even our citizens.

Paragraph (d) states:

if legal aid is granted in the Migration and Review Division of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to persons who are not Australian citizens, then the quantum of the grant of legal aid should be recovered via the taxation system in future years.

That means if legal aid is provided to a non-Australian citizen and they're successful and they get to remain in the country despite their terrorism offences or paedophilia offences or habitual crimes or sexual harassment or being Iranian tourists and lying—if they happen to get through that, which is not unusual in a stacked tribunal like the AAT—then they should be expected to repay that benefit through the taxation system, through an additional impost or, indeed, through the welfare system. Let's remind ourselves that many of these people who come here are still on welfare 10 years later. In fact, in some classes of refugee, up to 95 per cent of people are still obtaining welfare benefits 10 years after the event.

It's been indicated to me that there are a number of people in this chamber who have different views on some of these things. Madam Deputy President, I would ask that when you put these they be dealt with individually, because I think some of them are absolutely critical to the future success of this. At the end of these amendments, I will also ask that there be a paragraph (e) applied. Paragraph (e) is, quite simply, 'that consideration of the bill be deferred until after the next federal election.'

The battlelines need to be drawn. The battlelines need to be drawn for the Australian people. No matter how hopeless they may think this government is, no matter how uninspired they may be by the opposite side and the alternative government, there is one clear line of demarcation, and that is that the coalition are absolutely, positively right on defending Australia's borders. We need an orderly migration program. We need a migration program that is humane, that is caring, that is compassionate and that is going to work in Australia's economic, social and cultural interests. What is being proposed today, what has been cobbled together in such an imprudent fury, will damage that position. If you want to know how imprudent it is, this bill was brought in, but there's a guillotine, so we're not going to be able to debate all the things substantially and we're not going to be able to deal with it. Senator Wong, in trying to close down even a second reading debate, was hoist with her own petard. Her plotting and Machiavellian scheming worked against her. If she can't even trust herself to get her own plotting and scheming right, how can the Australian people trust her as the foreign minister or trust Mr Shorten as the Prime Minister of this country?

If you care for Australia, if you care for our refugees, if you care for our migration policies, if you care for our humanitarian intake, you will vote against this bill as it's proposed to be amended. I say that and I thank the Senate for their time.

The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Kitching ): Senator Bernardi, are you seeking to amend your amendment?

Senator BERNARDI: Yes. I seek leave to add the following to that amendment: section (e), as I said during my speech.

Leave not granted.

Senator ABETZ (Tasmania) (13:33): The Home Affairs Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2018 is deserving of the Senate's support. The amendments proposed by Senator Storer and the Greens do not deserve the support of the Senate. At the commencement of my remarks, can I foreshadow to the Senate that, on behalf of Senator Cormann, I will move that at the end of the motion we add:

"and that further consideration of this bill be deferred until after the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security has inquired and reported into all of the amendments circulated on this Bill by no later than 30 March 2019".

The ongoing updating of legislation to keep it relevant is vital, and that is what this bill seeks to do in relation to matters Home Affairs. As circumstances and technology change, so our legislative framework needs to keep up to date. The measures of this bill are clearly outlined in the explanatory memorandum and in the minister's second reading speech, the salient points of which are ensuring more workable arrangements for the removal of noncitizens, allowing correspondence to be forwarded online along with a few financial matters. What is of concern are the amendments that are being proposed, which would significantly weaken our border protection.

Fundamental to any nation-state is its capacity to control its borders. As Australians, we have a right to determine who comes to our country and the circumstances in which they come. If we can't, we have lost the right to call ourselves a sovereign nation. Australia's intake of non-Australians should be undertaken on the basis of clear and understandable guidelines. The first should be Australia's need for labour, particular skills and the capacity to provide a source of not domestically available labour.

Today, Australia is suffering from population stress when it comes to housing, infrastructure and jobs. That is why the Liberal government is correct in limiting the intake, which, at this time, is an issue on which Labor and the Greens are, it would appear, in a frozen policy zone—frozen because they have no policy of their own to offer the people of Australia, and they aren't able to bring themselves to fully embrace that which is common sense.

But, as a generous nation, we also have a refugee intake, which should also be tailored to deal with Australia's needs and capacity to integrate the refugees into Australia's society and culture. And, as a generous people, we should take people on the basis of need, not greed, on the basis of genuine refugee status, not on the capacity to pay criminal people smugglers. This is one of the few areas of social policy where it beats me as to why Labor and the Greens, but the Greens in particular, continue to assert that, if you've got the money to gatecrash Australia, you should be given precedence over those who don't have the money to gatecrash Australia. Where is the social justice in that? There is none whatsoever. That is completely devoid of social justice, and, might I add, completely devoid of compassion for those who do not have the financial resources. There is no doubt that Australia's generosity is being gamed. And what we have in relation to Nauru is a disgraceful attempt by the Greens, in particular, and some in the Labor Party to play the game of virtue-signalling whilst completely ignoring the very real and obvious consequences of doing so.

I listened to Senator Storer's contribution, and he talked about the crisis of health on Nauru. Well, the number of medical practitioners funded by the Australian taxpayer on Nauru would be the envy of most Australians, especially in regional areas of Australia. They are being exceptionally well serviced. Senator Storer referred to the 12 people who died in offshore detention. Strangely, he omitted the 100 times that number—1,200 people—who drowned at the hands of criminal people smugglers. But these figures, these matters, are just airbrushed out of the debate, out of the public discourse, so that people can continue their virtue-signalling.

Then we were told about those who had been there for five years. I have visited refugee camps where people have been there for 15 and 20 years. Where are the Australian doctors and others who seek to go there and do a psychoanalysis of the trauma occasioned to people being in those camps that are not air-conditioned, where often they don't get three square meals a day and where the medical support is exceptionally limited, if there is any at all? And somehow the people in Nauru are living in a hellhole? Excuse me: if it genuinely is a hellhole, does that mean we should repatriate every single person off Nauru? Of course not. In fact, the sorts of comments that emanate from the Australian Greens in relation to the lifestyle on their island are offensive to the Nauruan people—1,500 Nauruan-born children have the medical and health system that is there. It seems as though that's good enough for the Nauruans, but the enhanced medical support for the boat people, the illegal maritime arrivals, is somehow a hellhole. That is why I would invite those who use this language to genuinely consider what they're saying and the consequences of what they're saying. Is it able to withstand robust questioning? Is it able to withstand robust analysis? The simple fact is that every death is a matter of regret, but why one focuses on 12 in detention and airbrushes out 1,200 at sea—100 times the number—courtesy of criminal people smugglers is, I've got to say, a matter that I cannot quite equate. Then the question is: how many people die in the refugee camps? We don't even know, because we're not even interested. But of course that's somehow a sense of compassion.

Getting to the point of the Greens amendments, let's have a look at the medical evacuations that certain people are trying to manipulate when they gain Australia's generosity. This is a real case, and I invite the Greens and Senator Storer and others to listen in. Recently, international doctors on Nauru demanded an Iranian asylum seeker be medically evacuated to Australia because she was in so much pain. It cost $100,000 for the Australian taxpayer. The medical people thought, 'If there's so much pain, put her on a commercial flight.' But, no, Maurice Blackburn, that well-known Labor law firm got involved and sought a court order that she be transported by air ambulance. She was transported by air ambulance to Brisbane on 22 October and taken to a hospital. After a number of tests she was discharged, having been diagnosed with constipation—a medical emergency that required air ambulance! This is the gaming of Australian generosity in a completely unprincipled manner. Guess what? She found herself in Australia and she remains in Australia, and it is expected that a Federal Court injunction will be filed on her behalf. This is the gaming of the system. It is a real, live case—a real example. These are amendments being supported—possibly unwittingly, in relation to Senator Storer; I'll give him the benefit of the doubt—by the Greens, knowing that people are gaming the system in this horrendous way. I say to the Greens and to Senator Storer, because I've never had a discussion with him about this, that when I visited the refugee camps in western Thailand, the very first question I was asked as I arrived by one of the people who was able to speak English was: 'Why is it that Australia allows boat people to displace us, when we have such difficulty in being settled elsewhere in the world?'

I remember being in the electorate of Mallee, with a good member there, Mr Andrew Broad, speaking to the Korean people. A man there, who had come from the Korean people, was in tears, telling me that he was going to the airport to pick up his brother, who had finally been given refugee status in Australia, and they were going to be reunited. Earlier on that day, he had told me that he had been in Australia for four years and prior to that he had been in the refugee camp for 15 years. So I asked him whether he had arrived in the refugee camp at the same time, and the answer was yes. So I did the maths: here was a man who, for 19 years, was recognised as a refugee but was unable to be placed. Those refugees in Australia fully understand our border protection policy, because we allow people who have been waiting for 19 years to finally gain entry.

I say to Senator Storer and other well-meaning individuals in this place: be concerned about people who have no future for five years, but where is your heart for those who have been waiting nearly four times that period? If you had compassion for them, I might be able to understand what motivates. But, when you seek to champion the cause of the Iranian lady that I just referred to—costing the taxpayer $100,000 for a simple case of constipation—and then allowing her to make a Federal Court application to stay in Australia, that is gaming of the system that the Australian people don't want.

The Australian heart is generous. The Australian people want to support refugees, but they want to support those who are genuinely in need, not those who have never set a foot in a refugee camp and have bypassed refugee camp after refugee camp and safe asylum so that they can forum-shop with a pocket full of money that they've got and pay a people smuggler to advance their cause. My heart, my commitment, is more directed to those who don't have the money nor have the moral compass to engage criminals to support their cause. I believe that the bill is worthy of support.

Senator CORMANN (Western Australia—Minister for Finance and the Public Service, Vice-President of the Executive Council and Leader of the Government in the Senate) (13:48): I move:

That the debate be adjourned.

The PRESIDENT: The question is that the motion moved by Senator Cormann to adjourn debate on the bill be agreed to.

The PRESIDENT (13:54): The time for allotted consideration of this bill has expired. The question is that the second reading amendment on sheet 8621, moved by Senator Bernardi, be agreed to. Senator Bernardi?

Senator Bernardi: Mr President, it was indicated to me that some people have different views on some of these amendments, which are (a), (b), (c) and (d), and I think it would help the chamber if they could be dealt with individually.

Senator Fifield: We agree.

The PRESIDENT: I have got a request from Senator Fifield. I need a name for a separate request; I've got that. So (a), (b), (c) and (d) will be dealt with separately. The question is that paragraph (a) of Senator Bernardi's second reading amendment on sheet 8621 be agreed to.

The PRESIDENT (14:03): The question now is to adopt paragraph (b) of Senator Bernardi's second reading amendment on sheet 8621. All those of that opinion say aye. To the contrary no. The ayes have it. Division required? Ring the bell for four minutes. This will be the last four-minute bell rung.

Honourable senators interjecting—

The PRESIDENT: I said earlier that, because the last division was what is colloquially known as a mickey, the first real division would have a four-minute bell and every bell after that would be one minute only.

Senator Di Natale: Can you show me where 'mickey' is in Odgers?

The PRESIDENT: Senator Di Natale, I've heard you use the term outside the chamber too. I am just trying to facilitate the operation of the chamber. Some people do not turn up for divisions of that nature, so we will have one four-minute bell and then every bell after this will be for one minute.

Honourable senators interjecting—

The PRESIDENT: This is entirely consistent with the way I dealt with the income tax measures, where there were different views across the chamber. Senator Wong.

Senator Wong: Is it the intention, given the interaction between the motion passed by the Senate, under which we are operating, and 101(3), that, hereafter, all divisions are one minute?

The PRESIDENT: Yes. I've just announced that, as I announce this four-minute bell. The question is that paragraph (b) on Senator Bernardi's second reading amendment on sheet 8621 be agreed to. I remind senators that from this point forward division bells will be rung for one minute only, so don't leave.

The PRESIDENT (14:13): The question is that paragraph (c) of Senator Bernardi's second reading amendment be agreed to.

The PRESIDENT (14:18): I will now put that paragraph (d) of Senator Bernardi's second reading amendment be agreed to.

Senator Bernardi's amendment—

(d) if legal aid is granted in the Migration and Review Division of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal to persons who are not Australian citizens, then the quantum of the grant of legal aid should be recovered via the taxation system in future years".

The PRESIDENT (14:19): We will now move to the second reading amendment on sheet 2 circulated in the name of Senator Cormann. The question is the second reading amendment in the name of Senator Cormann be agreed to.

The PRESIDENT (14:26): We will now move to the second reading amendment on sheet 8622, circulated in the name of Senator Burston. The question is that the second reading amendment in the name of Senator Burston on sheet 8622 be agreed to.

The PRESIDENT (14:29): The question now is that this bill be now read a second time.

Senator BERNARDI (South Australia) (14:29): I seek leave to move the second reading amendment that I foreshadowed during my speech, that this bill be put off until after the next federal election.

Leave not granted.