Senator VANSTONE (Minister for Family and Community Services and Minister Assisting the Prime Minister for the Status of Women) (11:50 AM) —What people in those circumstances would need to do is show that their permanent intention was to return: in other words, that they had not given up on Australia.

Senator Schacht —How do they do that?

Senator VANSTONE —We are stuck with `domicile' as a criteria because we did not have citizenship at the time: that is a factual situation which I am sure you would like to blame us for today! What we have decided to do is to make the payment to those people who were domiciled in Australia at the time. It does not mean that they actually had to have physically been here: it means that their permanent intention was to live in Australia. People do go away for periods of time and on a case by case basis those matters have to be determined. `Domicile' is not an unfamiliar test in administrative law. This is not some new test that we have dreamt up. Is a perfectly common thing and—on a factual, case by case basis—these matters will have to be resolved.

You say that there might be more people: if they are entitled, well and good. All you are doing, Senator, is highlighting that there may be some cases where it is difficult to establish whether someone comes in the net that we have cast or not. We would hope that everyone who is entitled gets paid. And you are right that there may be some difficulties in doing this but this government has shown over the last five years that it is prepared to take on difficult things if it believes they are right. It may have been easier to just say, `Forget it—we'll leave it to service people.' We have chosen this path and we will complete the task.