George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Can I say that the opposition did try to sort this out with the minister’s office. We asked for a reporting date of 25 September simply because, although this legislation is not controversial in a party-political sense, it is extremely complex legislation which proposes alterations to the rules of evidence in 11 particular respects. It is my view that, in order to do the scrutiny of the bill justice, it is necessary for that committee, which is already burdened with other weighty inquiries in the near future, to have a little more time.

This is not intrinsically urgent. The uniform evidence legislation arises from a report of the Australian Law Reform Commission which was delivered in 2006. It is not credible to say that any mischief would be done by the postponement of the operation of the amendments to the Evidence Act by another three weeks in order to give the Senate the opportunity to scrutinise what are very technical amendments, which have attracted not a lot of public comment but a great deal of attention from the bar and the professional associations, who will no doubt want to make submissions to the inquiry and have them considered properly.