Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Warringah for her support for the bill and the amendments, and I would seek to answer the question that she's raised about the qualifications of the reviewer. It's a fairly familiar form now in this parliament that, particularly for new institutions or new legislative arrangements, we provide for a statutory review after some years, particularly when we're making substantial changes, as this new model of an Administrative Review Tribunal does. It is important that we go back and check that we are achieving the objectives of the reform. Clause 294A(4) will set out the required qualifications for the reviewer. It will provide that the reviewer must, in the minister's opinion, have the appropriate expertise in administrative review. It's a clause that I think ensures that the review of the act and of the operation of the tribunal will be conducted by an independent reviewer whom the minister has considered to have the appropriate expertise and requisite knowledge to conduct the review.

I think that it's possible to say that over the last 20 years or so, where we have provided for statutory reviews, almost invariably appropriate reviewers are appointed. The greater difficulty is making sure that, when a review is conducted, the government of the day acts on the review report. I have in mind there the excellent review of the Public Interest Disclosure Act was done by Philip Moss. When that bill passed through the parliament in 2013, appropriately, I, in my capacity as Special Minister of State at the time, provided for a review and for a reviewer to be appointed. The former government did appoint an appropriate reviewer in Philip Moss, an eminent Australian public servant, but, sadly, he having produced an excellent review of the Public Interest Disclosure Act in 2016, nothing happened.

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