House debates

Wednesday, 11 September 2024

Bills

Parliamentary Workplace Support Service Amendment (Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission) Bill 2024; Consideration in Detail

10:34 am

Photo of Patrick GormanPatrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I just want to briefly respond to the member for Mackellar. In the discussion that we've had in this parliament and the work leading up to the bill in front of members today, there has been good, thoughtful engagement, even when there have been differences in views about how to get this done. As the member said in concluding her remarks, there has been a strong commitment to getting this done. Again, I want to pay tribute to everyone who has worked on this, especially those in Minister Gallagher's office, and Minister Gallagher herself, who has engaged very thoughtfully across the parliament to get us to this point.

I would just note for members that the legislation already stipulates that the appointment of commissioners should be through a merit based and publicly advertised process. So that is already a requirement in this bill, which I hope will pass this House today. To be appointed, you have to have gone through that merit based process, and that is an important thing. I know the member for Mackellar is very passionate about seeing government do more in that space, but in this instance the reason that we're not moving an amendment on merit based or publicly advertised positions is that it is already in the bill.

It's worth noting that, currently, under the bill as it's proposed, commissioners would be appointed by the Governor-General on the recommendation of the relevant minister at the time. But before the minister can make a recommendation to the Governor-General regarding a commissioner the minister must be satisfied that the person meets the selection and qualification requirements under the bill—that is, specifically, that the person to be appointed as a commissioner must be enrolled as a legal practitioner and enrolled for at least five years, or be a former Commonwealth judicial officer, or be a former judge of a Supreme Court of a state or territory, or have the skills, knowledge or experience investigating workplace misconduct.

I note that we are appointing a range of commissioners, and having a range of different skills on that panel is very important. We don't want to unnecessarily limit the skill base available to the Commonwealth, but we also want to make sure that there is very clear guidance and requirements set out in the statutory books, for decade after decade, for the minister—not just the minister I referred to at the start of my remarks who has carriage of this and knows its intent—when they are making those decisions. We think that this bill in its current form gets that right. While I acknowledge the good intent of the amendments from the member for Mackellar, the government won't be supporting them.

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