Page 1571 - Week 05 - Thursday, 15 May 2014
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commonwealth Privacy Act amendments which came into effect in March this year did not immediately apply to the ACT.
It appears we are in a situation where significant amendments are required to bring the ACT legislation up to date and to ensure it incorporates the most up-to-date version of commonwealth law. Failing to update the legislation would not only put us out of step with commonwealth law but be confusing for the people it applies to and have resource implications due to the greater administrative burden caused by inconsistencies.
This was an opportune time not only to update the ACT legislation but to enact an ACT-specific privacy act, although in practice the territory privacy principles essentially just mirror the federal ones.
The rationale provided for this bill by the government is that it will improve the clarity and accessibility of the ACT privacy framework while establishing legislation that is relevant to the ACT circumstances.
I must admit that when I first saw this bill, I was not immediately sold on its necessity. As I said, the commonwealth Privacy Act already currently applies to the ACT, and we already make use of the federal privacy commissioner and the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. Unfortunately, though, things have changed since the federal budget. As members are probably now aware, Tuesday's federal budget abolished the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner. It also significantly restructured the role of the federal privacy commissioner. As Mr Corbell said in his tabling speech for this bill, the intention had been that:
The ACT will draw on the considerable expertise of the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner in a manner that recognises the specific circumstances of the ACT and is appropriate and adapted to our jurisdictional needs.
There will no longer be an information commissioner. The functions of the commissioner will be distributed to different commonwealth agencies.
There are two things to consider then. The first is whether there are some technical amendments that should be made to the ACT bill to reflect the new situation at the federal level. I understand that Mr Corbell and his officials will now do that analysis.
I also think it is fair to say that we do not know yet if the restructured federal agencies will be able to do the same job as the existing commissioner’s office and whether there will be the same resources or efficiency. The privacy commissioner, previously part of the Office of the Information Commissioner, will be moved to the Australian Human Rights Commission. It is yet unclear whether the commissioner will be able to perform the same functions with the same efficiency. In particular, where the commissioner may be operating under much more severe resource constraints, I think there is a real question as to whether the ACT can expect to receive the same level of advice and service from the commissioner. That is just a reality of resource constraint. There might be delays or reduced services.
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