David Bushby (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of Senator Coonan, I present a report and alert digest of the Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills.

Ordered that the report be printed.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I seek leave to incorporate the tabling statement in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The statement read as follows—

SENATE STANDING COMMITTEE FOR THE SCRUTINY OF BILLS

TABLING STATEMENT

Alert Digest No. 4 and Fourth Report of 2011

11 May 2011

In tabling the Committee's Alert Digest No. 4 I particularly draw the Senate’s attention to the Committee's comments on the Australian National Registry of Emissions Units Bill. This bill seeks to provide a legislative basis for an electronic registry system used to account for emissions units under the Kyoto Protocol.

The Committee has raised a number of concerns about the bill arising under Standing Order 24. These include that:

The Committee will seek further advice from the Minister about these issues.

The Committee also draws the Senate's attention to some other matters in the bill of relevance to Standing Order 24:

In Alert Digest No. 4 the Committee explains its possible concerns with these provisions, notes the justification for them provided in the explanatory memorandum and leaves it to the Senate as a whole to determine whether or the proposed provisions are appropriate.

Several other bills also contain issues of potential concern under Standing Order 24. These include the Carbon Credits (Carbon Farming Initiative) Bill; the Competition and Consumer Amendment Bill (No. 1); the Family Law Legislation Amendment (Family Violence and Other Measures) Bill; and others. I draw the Senate’s attention to all of the Committee’s comments in Alert Digest No.4.

In relation to scrutiny concerns raised in previous Digests the Committee has received replies to the issues it raised in relation to the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (Abolition of Alpine Grazing) Bill, the Human Services Legislation Amendment Bill and the National Health Reform Amendment (National Health Performance Authority) Bill.

The Committee particularly thanks the Minister for Health and Ageing who has provided detailed responses to issues raised by the Committee and who has agreed to make public any instruments specifying additional functions to be performed by the National Health Performance Authority.

The Committee also notes that the explanatory memorandum to the Alpine Grazing Bill that was inadvertently omitted from circulation is reproduced in its Fourth Report.

I commend Alert Digest No. 4 of 2011 and the Fourth Report of 2011 to the Senate.

Question agreed to.