Philip Ruddock (Berowra, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

in reply—I thank the member for Wills for his indication of support for the measure and I thank the member for Fisher for his very supportive comments. He will observe that, listening to the speech of the honourable member for Wills, he and I did take interest in one of the comments, which I will come back to in a few moments.

The first Statute Law Revision Bill was introduced into Commonwealth legislation in 1981. Legislation of this type has been a feature of ensuring that what are traditionally housekeeping issues in relation to legislation are effectively addressed. Parties of both political persuasions have used statute law revision measures to achieve that outcome. So there is nothing unusual about it, but the expansion of it, which covers areas that I identified such as the removal of obsolete and outdated language as well as legislation that is no longer required, takes us beyond mere technical amendments. I would not want to overlook the role of parliamentary counsel in this process; they work under enormous pressure. I know the speed with which they have had to address very major legislation. If you look at the workplace reforms that have recently been implemented, they took an enormous amount of time, I think it required something like three teams of drafters to be able to have that very complex legislation readied.

The member for Wills suggested, in relation to these matters, that legislation is sometimes hastily drafted. Let me say, it is drafted under a great deal of pressure. That does not mean it is hastily drafted. Governments have programs which need to be implemented. People would be critical of us if those matters, which we had foreshadowed as policy initiatives, were not implemented in a timely way but, inevitably, there can be drafting errors. That should not be a reflection on parliamentary counsel. They have a very high level of expertise in this area. Noting and collating errors in existing legislation to ensure that our statute book remains accurate and effective is one of their roles and I think they do it extraordinarily well.

The bill does not change the substantive nature of law, but it is always interesting when people make comments outside of the legislative measures. I did note with interest the rather expansive view that the member for Wills took on the use of Commonwealth powers in areas in which he may have an interest—he identified urban public transport, for instance. It is interesting to note that—in the context in which the Commonwealth is often accused of taking an expansive view, such as in the area of Work Choices, and the opposition is very critical—they have a view that when there are other areas of interest to them an expansive view should be taken. I am sure they would not want to simply hand over buckets of money to the states and hope that issues might be addressed.

Obviously, what the opposition are observing is that we should have Commonwealth oversight in areas where the states have been traditionally responsible, and there are difficulties in relation to that unless you take it over entirely. You have duplication; you have expenditure that has to be made at a Commonwealth level to administer these matters as well as the administration that happens in the states’ hands.

Our view has been—particularly through the GST, which is a growth tax—that the states would be better resourced. I note the recent reports that have demonstrated that the growth tax has grown much more substantially than it was originally thought. It has put the states in a very strong position to be able to undertake their responsibilities more fully, and, I would say in relation to urban public transport, to do so at all. But the fact is they seem to have their own priorities and it seems to me that the proper approach is to see in an election in the states whether or not the priorities that the states have determined are the most appropriate.

I would agree that urban public transport is an area in need of very significant additional resources, but I think the states have made decisions that those resources ought not to be put there and that they ought to be put into areas of public expenditure. I note that, in my own state, it tends to be simply in those areas of administration, and increased funds are being committed to paying those involved in public administration. I suspect that, if the states had been more careful in the way in which they programmed their own expenditure, they would have been better placed to deal with a number of these tasks. I only offer those comments because of the observations by the member for Wills.

Can I return to my starting point and say how much I appreciate the support of the opposition for this measure. From time to time I do make observations that a very substantial proportion of legislation is non-controversial; this is such a measure.

Question agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

Ordered that the bill be reported to the House without amendment.

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