Senator GREIG (5:32 PM) —I will speak very briefly on the Australian Federal Police and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2004 as we spoke at some length in earlier discussion on this legislation. The key amendment to which the House of Representatives has disagreed—I am assuming there was only one but perhaps there were other amendments—came from we Democrats, who were looking for opportunities to militate against what we saw as the inappropriateness of the Federal Police Commissioner being chastised for speaking out publicly on an issue which caused the government some embarrassment as it appeared to suggest policy differences. It was our view that those senior public servants, and the commissioner in particular, ought not be placed in the difficult and possibly invidious position of not being able to speak out on what they believe to be matters of public importance, at the risk of their own employment.

The amendment we therefore moved, and won support for from the opposition, was to ensure that such speaking out by the commissioner would not place her or his employment in jeopardy. The amendment therefore was self-explanatory and it was our hope that it would be adopted with a view to ensuring that there was greater transparency and accountability in terms of the processes for senior public servants, an example of which we saw in the recent scenario involving Commissioner Keelty. It remains our view that that amendment ought to have been supported and should have become a part of the legislation. However, although the House of Representatives has not seen fit to embrace it, we will not stand in the way of the passage of the legislation as a whole given that the broader provisions of the legislation certainly have merit.