Senator COONAN (7:52 PM) —I thank Senator Brown. I think he might actually have risen before me, but I thank him anyway. That was the most extraordinary intervention from Senator Conroy, who seems to feel that this legislation is so fragile and so lacking in substance that it is not able to withstand the review of a sunset clause in 36 months. That is the most extraordinary proposition from a minister at the table. He feels that a proper review and proper scrutiny of what is obviously a serious piece of legislation is somehow going to bring it to its knees, that it is going to be rendered nugatory by a review and by a sunset clause.

It might just be Senator Conroy’s flourishes, because normally Senator Sherry would take this bill through its stages, but if the government were so concerned that this bill lacks any substance and is unable to withstand the scrutiny in 36 months of a sunset clause they would have put forward a very different set of provisions in the bill. But we have what we have and we are now at the heel of the hunt and the mere prospect of review and scrutiny makes Senator Conroy wobble at the knees. This is an extraordinary turn-up for the books. There is absolutely no reason why a government confident of the rightness of its position and of the robustness of the legislation that it puts forward would not be very prepared to allow the Productivity Commission report to be brought down so that everyone can have a look at that and take it into account and also consider how the APRA principles are going and how the further global regulatory changes play out. These are all relevant matters, and they are all matters that may well require the early revisiting of this legislation so that, once again, we are aligned with what is happening in other jurisdictions and this matter is kept under review.

We think that it should be kept in the public eye and that we should not just wave it through on the basis that it is not looked at again. This will keep everyone with their shoulder to the wheel, making sure that the balance is right in this very important matter. I have certainly heard nothing from Senator Conroy that would dissuade me from thinking that Senator Xenophon’s sunset clause is not only properly put forward but also an appropriate way for this legislation to be kept under review.