Senator IAN CAMPBELL (Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasurer) (12:02 PM) —I do not want to provoke a long debate, but I do want to make one point. Senator Wong did ask an entirely reasonable question about not accepting the amendment which expands it to executives. That is a particular policy idea that does deserve consideration. As I explained at length last night—probably at far too great a length—there is a problem with section 300A as it was put into the Senate last time because it was drafted literally on this floor, where even I was unsure about how you should define emoluments or remuneration. We are still fixing that up now. There is a draft bill out for exposure at the moment, which I can give you a copy of and which addresses those issues. I am not using this as an excuse—it is something that can be addressed and probably should be addressed. For example, there is no definition of executive or executive officer. I am not saying this is an excuse not to do it but it is something that should be looked at in a diligent way. There is no definition of executive in the law at the moment and yet the amendment says that.

There are also issues of coverage of senior executives—for example, how do you define senior executive? When you are going back four years, for example, how do you pick the top five? There is a range of issues. I am not doing this in a Sir Humphrey Appleby sort of way, saying, `Legal, technical, administrative difficulties,' but these are things which I think we can all respect. Last night I reread Labor's policy in relation to disclosure of remuneration. It draws attention to the fact that Labor wants to reform 300A to make it more effective and more enforceable. We are in absolute unanimity there.

In relation to extending the repayment of directors' bonuses, if the government do agree with the policy—and we have not reviewed it yet; the committee has reported and made a recommendation but we have not had a chance to review that, and I do not pre-empt that because there are a range of things we want to look at—you would want to ensure that the drafting sought to achieve the outcome you want to achieve. We simply cannot do that. That is why I say these sorts of amendments should be subject to the diligent processes that the rest of the law reform proposals are. I am not saying that we are opposed in principle at this stage but, even if we were attracted to the proposition, we believe there are some potential problems with the amendment. I will not add anything else. I just thought Senator Wong's question deserved a more considered response.

The TEMPORARY CHAIRMAN (Senator Watson)—The question is that the amendments be agreed to.

Question agreed to.

Bill, as amended, agreed to.

Bill reported with amendments; report adopted.