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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 9 Hansard (31 August) . . Page.. 2638 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

Fifteen sitting days, the period which is currently required, equates, as everybody would appreciate, to five sitting weeks. The six sitting days proposed by the Attorney equates to two sitting weeks, and the basic justification advanced by the Minister is that this reduction would enhance the efficiency of government administration. The Attorney suggests that administration will be improved, and that those people with rights affected by a subordinate law need to be given certainty as soon as possible in ordering their affairs. That is a sentiment with which we are happy to agree.

I will go through some of the procedures and some of the background in relation to subordinate laws because I have circulated some amendments, so I will spend a little time now explaining the process as it applies. Currently the steps for making and disallowing subordinate laws are, first, notification of the law in the Gazette - no time limit is currently required after the signing of the law; secondly, the tabling of the law in the Assembly within 15 sitting days after notification; thirdly, potentially, one can give notice of a motion to disallow the law within 15 sitting days after tabling; finally, resolution of the motion or its deeming to have been resolved in the affirmative, which must occur within 15 sitting days of moving the motion.

As members know, the current administrative practice adopted by the Assembly is for subordinate legislation to be tabled on Tuesday of each sitting week. In the 1999 sitting pattern, a disallowance period of six sitting days would have required subordinate legislation presented in any session to be held over until at least the following session. For example, notice of a motion to disallow subordinate legislation tabled on Tuesday, 20 April 1999 could have been given at any time up to 22 June. Notice of a motion to disallow subordinate legislation tabled today could be given at any time up to 19 October.

I will not take too long on this, but there are some implications applying to shortening the period for disallowance. The shortening does impact on our procedures in a number of areas. First, the Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety, in its role as a scrutiny of Bills committee, will have reduced flexibility in managing its workload. The committee will have to ensure that any comments on subordinate legislation are always included in its first report after the tabling, otherwise members will not have the benefit of the committee's comments when deciding whether to move for disallowance. It is noticeable that in Report No. 8 of 1999, under the heading "Insufficient scrutiny of legislative power", the scrutiny committee did query whether the explanatory memorandum, in that case, gave sufficient justification for what would be significant change.

The second aspect on which this proposal does impact is the Government's ability to respond to the committee's comments in a timely manner. The time currently allowed to the Government would be reduced by this proposal. For example, given a two-week sitting period, a subordinate law tabled on the first Tuesday would be reported on by the committee on the second Tuesday of the sitting. The Government's response to any concerns would have to be available for the committee to consider and include in its next report that would be presented on the Tuesday of the next sitting week.

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