Helen Coonan (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Finance, Competition Policy and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

The incorporated speech read as follows—

In tabling the Committee’s Alert Digest No. 3 of 2009, I would like to draw the Senate’s attention to several provisions in both the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill 2009 and the Transport Safety Investigation Amendment Bill 2009.

With respect to the Civil Aviation Amendment Bill, the Committee has sought the Minister’s advice on provisions dealing with:

• entry and search powers of investigators;
• exemption of certain directions given by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) to investigators from the operation of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003;
• application of the demerits points scheme for holders of a ‘civil aviation authorisation’; and
• the automatic stay of certain ‘reviewable decisions’ taken by CASA for a period of five days after such decisions have been taken.

In relation to the Transport Safety Investigation Amendment Bill, the Committee has noted that proposed new subsection 63E allows the Chief Commissioner of the Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) to appoint special investigators if they satisfy criteria specified by the regulations. A person to whom a power is delegated (including powers delegated to special investigators) under new subsection 63B is a staff member of the ATSB (see item 16 of Schedule 1 which amends section 3) so certain benefits follow, including legal representation at coronial inquiries (proposed new section 68).

While the bill provides for an annual report by the ATSB on various matters, including prescribed particulars of matters investigated and a description of investigations (proposed new section 63A), there appears to be no specific mechanism in the bill which provides for any reporting to the Parliament on the use of special investigators. The Committee has therefore sought the Minister’s advice in relation to whether heightened parliamentary scrutiny might be appropriate in the circumstances. In particular, given the breadth of the bill’s delegation power in relation to special investigators, the Committee has inquired of the Minister whether a specific reporting mechanism – for example, a separate document tabled in both Houses of the Parliament on an annual basis containing details of all relevant activities of special investigators – might be considered in order to promote transparency and openness in this area.

Items 71 to 103 of Schedule 1 of the Transport Safety Investigation Amendment Bill contains amendments to the Inspector of Transport Security Act 2006 and concerns the transfer of powers and functions from the Executive Director of Transport Safety Investigations to the ATSB and the Chief Commissioner.

Item 89 refers to proposed new subsection 64(5) which provides that the Minister must not give a person or government agency, or table in the Parliament, any part of a final report that contains restricted information given to the Inspector of Transport Security by the ATSB without the prior ‘agreement’ of the Chief Commissioner if the disclosure may compromise an investigation or have a substantial adverse effect on the conduct of operations of the ATSB. Similarly, item 84 refers to proposed new subsection 52(5) which repeats the requirement that the Minister obtain the ‘agreement’ of the Chief Commissioner before giving information in any part of an interim report to a person or government agency or tabling the interim report in the Parliament in similar circumstances.

The Committee considers that there is some limit on the exercise of the Minister’s discretion in these circumstances. Therefore, the Committee has sought the Minister’s advice as to whether these provisions contain an unnecessary fetter on the Minister and, if so, whether ‘advice’ or ‘recommendations’ from the Chief Commissioner to the Minister might also be considered.

I commend the Committee’s Alert Digest No. 3 of 2009 and Second Report of 2009 to the Senate.

Question agreed to.