Senator CHRIS EVANS (10:29 AM) —by leave—I move opposition amendments Nos 9 and 10:

These amendments seek to codify the circumstances where legal proceedings and garnisheeing action may be commenced to ensure such action does not take place in inappropriate circumstances. Senators would be aware that this year's Ombudsman's report outlined circumstances where there had been overzealous action in terms of garnisheeing, particularly the incidence of garnisheeing of a child's bank account.

Without reducing the necessity for flexibility in the most appropriate debt recovery method, Labor's amendments set out clearly the methods, such as repayment by instalment, that must be considered before rash decisions to garnishee or implement legal proceedings. Basically, we are seeking to codify steps to ensure that action in seeking to deal with debts is not overzealous or overharsh. The government's bill sets out a means by which the debt may be recovered, and our amendments seek to ensure that they give priority to those less harsh measures and those measures which deal with encouraging repayment by instalments under an agreement rather than those that go straight down the path of legal proceedings or garnishee notices. We do not seek to prevent that happening when it is warranted, but we want to try to make sure that we do not get overzealous action in pursuing debts, which we have seen on some occasions—sometimes even in circumstances where the debt proved not to be of the same amount first claimed by Centrelink. We think this is an important protection. It codifies procedures which make legal proceedings the last step and which encourage Centrelink to pursue more reasonable endeavours in the first place, particularly with regard to entering into arrangements with the client. We think it is an improvement to the bill, and we hope it is supported by the Senate.