Senator BOB COLLINS (Minister for Primary Industries and Energy) (6.12 p.m.) —Senator MacGibbon was late to the chamber, and I will not do as Senator Parer suggested. I will not read just three—

Senator Parer —That makes a change.

Senator BOB COLLINS —No, I will not read out again, unless provoked—and Senator Parer has got the hide to talk about theatre—three of the quotes from some of the over-the-top statements that have been made by the coalition about the central problem of confusing commercialisation with safety. With respect, Senator MacGibbon, have a look at what Senator Parer said about our alleged disregard for `effective' and `efficient' and at what is being proposed by the government in terms of the purposes of the board—that is, the government is proposing that CASA perform its functions in a proper, efficient and effective manner.

  The minister has made clear in his second reading speech precisely how he will do that. Of course cost is important. Senator MacGibbon would recall as well as I would many of the committees that this Senate sat through talking about affordable safety and hearing the criticisms that I think were very unfairly heaped on Dick Smith for those statements. As Dick Smith pointed out, affordability has also been—and always has been in the real world—a factor of any safety regulation, whether it is road safety or air safety; otherwise, as Dick Smith used to say, you would insist that every aircraft in the world had four engines and not one.

  There has always been an element of affordability. Senator MacGibbon, it is the word `economical' that we object to in all the inferences that that has. As a speaker of the normal English language, I know what the inferences of `economical' are. We are saying `effective' and `efficient' as understood. Senator Macgibbon, I read the definition into the Hansard. Have a look at the actual definitions of those words by the federal Department of Finance. These are proper accountability words that are well understood by the bureaucracy and the courts.

  What puzzled me most was the wording. Senator MacGibbon, perhaps I could refer it to you—I do not know whether you left a few words out. I was quite open about the fact that I was not even familiar with these amendments until I walked into the chamber. The curious wording—and it is very curious; more so than `economical'—is this tag on the end of the objectives: `more people to benefit from civil aviation'. What does that mean precisely? Why don't you at least say, `We will not be supporting these objectives. We will support the government's objectives'? But to make it clear that safety is indeed the main priority of the safety side of the organisation, as well it being efficient and effective in paying for it, why don't you say something like `more people to benefit from a safe system of civil aviation'? The words there trail off into midair.

Senator Parer —Because it's already covered in the previous words.

Senator BOB COLLINS —This is a very important section, Senator Parer. This is the object of the act. When you are talking about more people benefiting—in some amorphous way—from civil aviation, why don't you at least re-emphasise that what we want them to benefit from is a safe system of civil aviation?