Russell Broadbent (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

On listening to the member for Berowra speak, and especially when he talks about regulatory oversight over businesses, I'm reminded of a woman who used to ring in to the Jon Faine program in Melbourne. She ran a very popular cafe cum restaurant down towards Port Phillip Bay, and all of a sudden she rang up one day and said, 'I'm not going on with this business.' I thought, 'This is an unusual phone call in to the Jon Faine program,' because it was about as Left as you could be in Melbourne. He's retired now, but it was certainly worth listening to him. Apparently, there were so many regulations on this woman's business and so many imposts on where the staff could go and what they could do, and there were so many parts to the legislation on this industry, that she literally could not continue in business with the regulatory oversight and the intersections of all of these regulations coming across her business. For instance, if a kitchenhand picked up something in the restaurant and carried it out, they had to be paid a different rate from what they would have been paid had they just been there. So she closed the business and said, 'I can't do this anymore,' because the award was so complicated. What the Regulatory Powers (Standardisation Reform) Bill 2020 will do, I hope, will be to streamline enormously.

I was also reminded of the number of people on our side of politics—and if I've missed any on the other side I'm sure I'll be advised about it—who I know have run a business. Just off the top of my head, I can pick the member for Grey, the member for Forrest, the member for Wright, the member for Barker, the member for Longman, the member for Hinkler, the member for Flynn, the member for Fisher, the member for Groom and, of course, myself, the member for Monash—just a few who actually know the rigours of employing people, running a business, making it work and making it profitable. These people can make a major contribution to this parliament because of their background. They've lived in the real world.

This bill amends the Defence Force Discipline Act 1992; the Education Services for Overseas Students Act 2000; the Fisheries Management Act 1991, which you've heard the two previous speakers refer to particularly; the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency Act 2011; the Tobacco Advertising Prohibition Act 1992; and the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act 2011. Some of these acts contain existing regulatory regimes which the bill replaces with the standard provisions to align the acts' regulatory regimes with the standard provisions. The bill provides additional powers for current regulatory regimes in some acts to ensure they are robust and align with best practice. The bill also provides some regulatory powers for acts which do not currently contain regulatory regimes but require regulatory powers to ensure a robust compliance and enforcement scheme. Modifications to the standard powers are included where necessary for effective regulation in the context of each act. The bill also makes minor amendments to the regulatory powers act to ensure that the regulatory requirements and the underlying penalty and offence provisions of acts that trigger the regulatory powers act can be effectively enforced.

As a general overview of this bill, the measure represents a second coordinated tranche of amendments to Commonwealth acts that trigger the operation of the regulatory powers act. The regulatory powers act provides for a standard suite of provisions in relation to monitoring and investigation powers, as well as provisions regulating the use of civil penalties, infringement notices, enforceable undertakings and injunctions. By standardising the regulatory powers across the Commonwealth, the act intends to: (1) significantly reduce the length of legislation governing each regulatory regime; (2) provide greater clarity and consistency for agencies that need to exercise powers with respect to multiple regulatory regimes; (3) make it easier for businesses that are subject to multiple regimes to understand and comply with the law; and (4) facilitate the development of a common body of law. If we can, we should make it easier and less complicated for businesses to do business and they can understand the development of a common body of law, where everybody can get on board.

The standard provisions of the regulatory powers act represent best practice in relation to regulatory powers of general application. Implementing the regulatory powers act supports the government's regulatory reform agenda, as that act intends to simplify and streamline Commonwealth regulatory powers across the statute book that currently vary in breadth and detail, resulting in inconsistency or unnecessary duplication across regimes.

Standardisation provides the regulatory agencies with the opportunity to use more-uniform powers and increase legal certainty for businesses and individuals who are subject to those powers. The use of standard provisions ensures that the government exercises regulatory powers responsibly and with accountability so that the rights of individuals and businesses remain protected. I'll just repeat that: the use of the standard provisions ensures that the government exercises regulatory powers responsibly and with accountability so that the rights of individuals and businesses remain protected.

The Regulatory Powers (Standard Provisions) Act will make minor amendments to the regulatory powers act to ensure that the regulatory requirements and underlying penalty and offence provisions of the acts that trigger the regulatory powers act can be effectively enforced. Those amendments would (1) enable the use of monitoring powers in relation to matters rather than only in relation to a provision or information given in compliance with a provision and (2) update the prescription of offence provisions and the description of a provision relating to infringement notices which might apply to the contravention of both a civil penalty and criminal offence provision to ensure consistency throughout the regulatory powers act and respond to recent drafting practices.

As part of addressing this issue, I'd like to turn my attention to the Defence Force Discipline Act. The Defence Force Discipline Act 1982 is to be amended. The measure amends the Defence Force Discipline Act to trigger the investigations provisions in part 3 of the regulatory powers act to enable investigation of alleged service offences on civilian premises and public places. Existing investigation powers under the Defence Force Discipline Act enable investigation of alleged service offences on service land, not on public or civilian premises. This measure provides a supplementary suite of investigative powers to those currently available in the Defence Force Discipline Act that are more appropriate to application on non-service land. The powers contained in this measure are necessary because evidence required in order to investigate service offences may not be located on service land. Because of the use of new technologies or innovations, they're not necessarily held on service land that needs to be investigated.

The amendments will ensure that the investigation of alleged service offences can be undertaken effectively and appropriately when they occur off Defence Force facilities, off Defence Force land and out in the community. This act amends the Defence Force Discipline Act to include the following modifications to the standard investigation provisions: (1) the power to use force against things that is necessary and reasonable in the circumstances by authorised persons and persons assisting authorised persons and (2) the ability of an authorised person to be accompanied by and make use of an animal in the course of that investigation.

So it obviously increases the opportunity and powers for those persons who are responsible for investigating such malfeasance to be able to do that off Defence Force land, which they are unable to do at the moment. So this actually gives them the opportunity and creates a system for the enforcement and maintenance of good order and discipline in the Australian Defence Force. It also serves to ensure the effectiveness, efficiency and morale of the ADF and consequently the defence of the nation as well as public confidence in the ADF. This bill does this through creating a disciplined system which includes a disciplinary offence code for service offences.

All ADF members are subject to the Defence Force Discipline Act in certain situations. A specified category of civilian persons—defence civilians—and prisoners of war are also subject to this act. This act currently establishes a framework that allows for investigation of service offences under the Defence Force Discipline Act. The framework includes extensive investigative powers that are appropriate and necessary within a military context. However, the exercise of many of these powers are confined to service land, as I said before. This application limits the practical scope of the existing investigation powers and therefore many of the investigation powers themselves have not changed to take into account the evolving nature of military life and offending. Schedule 2 of the act amends the Defence Force Discipline Act to trigger the investigation provisions in part 3 of the Regulatory Powers Act to enable investigation of alleged service offences on premises which are not service land—that is, civilian premises and public places.

Triggering part 3 of the Regulatory Powers Act provides a supplementary suite of investigation powers to those currently available under part 6 of the Defence Force Discipline Act that are more appropriate for application on non-service land. The availability of investigation powers that can be used on civilian premises and in public places is necessary as a service offence and the evidence required to investigate those offences, such as bank statements, real estate records, CCTV footage and other things that may not be located on service land. The amendments in schedule 2 are necessary in order to ensure that evidential material can be obtained wherever it is located, either with the consent of the occupier of the premises or the owner of the said thing, or by executing a warrant. This just brings the Defence Force Discipline Act, created in 1982, into today's real world of what needs to be addressed by the Defence Force along with all of these other regulatory issues that are bound up in this quite extensive legislation.

Of course, like for myself, in this parliament anything that streamlines government regulatory operations and which gives a greater understanding to all of us of what we need to do under the law is good. The law is in this place; the laws are made here, but it is right that we review every piece of legislation and see if we can streamline that legislation so it is easier to understand and so it is acknowledged by the people who are affected by that legislation—that doesn't matter if they're in the Defence Force, education services or fisheries management or if it's about the Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, the tobacco advertising prohibition or the Tobacco Plain Packaging Act. All of these things should be addressed by this parliament. We should review legislation that is put in place when, in a latter time such as this, it has become out of date and needs updating.

This legislation will make Australia, doing business in Australia and the regulatory powers that cover all these issues, streamlined. I commend this act to the House for immediate delivery and passage.

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