Page 36 - Week 01 - Tuesday, 9 February 2016
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The government has prescribed what internal processes must be set out in a formal fashion but has not determined these processes, acknowledging that the commission is best placed to develop internal practices that will work for an expanded commission.
Division 3.2A of the bill establishes simplified, consolidated appointment and delegation provisions that also support the inclusion of the Victims of Crime Commissioner and Public Advocate in the commission. Previously each commissioner position had a separate provision detailing appointment, ending of appointments and delegations.
Under the bill a commission member, including the president, may delegate the member’s functions under the act or another territory law to another member or a commission staff member. Although the president has a broad range of functions, it is anticipated that the supporting work for those functions will be progressed in collaboration with the individual commissioners and their teams who have subject matter expertise and linkages to community groups and professional sectors. A broad delegations power in the bill will support this vesting of accountability and responsibility for cross-commission functions in the president while maintaining flexibility across the commission as a whole.
The bill removes responsibility for handling complaints to the Disability and Community Services Commissioner, who will also be the Discrimination Commissioner and the Health Services Commissioner. Clauses 2l(l)(ab)(iv) and (v) of the bill had extrapolated new complaints functions in relation to victims of crime and in relation to matters about which the Public Advocate has functions and transferred those to the Disability and Community Services Commissioner for a consistent complaints process across the commission. However, further consultation with the Victims of Crime Commissioner and his staff has indicated that the approach should be changed in order to facilitate the Victims of Crime Commissioner and Public Advocate performing their functions using existing advocacy methods.
These are the reasons for the government amendments that I have circulated. The government amendments will omit these clauses. A formal mechanism for handling victims’ complaints will be considered further, but at this time, and with the imminent introduction of the victims financial assistance scheme bill 2016, it has been decided that creating a formal victims complaint mechanism, as opposed to the informal advocacy work that the commissioner does to resolve victims’ concerns, would be impractical at this time.
The functions of the Victims of Crime Commissioner of ensuring concerns and complaints about non-compliance with the governing principles are dealt with promptly and effectively will be retained instead in the Victims of Crime Act 1994. Consistent with this, the government will also propose to oppose other amendments in clauses 28, 29, 30 and 31 which supported this move of the victims of crime complaints functions to the Disability and Community Services Commissioner.
The government also proposes to omit the definition of victims of crime service complaint from clause 43 and omit the amendment of schedule 1, part 1.3, clause 1.24 which made amendments to the Victims of Crime Act to shift the function in section 11(d) to the Disability and Community Services Commissioner.
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