Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

If Senator Hanson-Young had actually listened to my summing up speech she may have been enlightened as to the reasons that the explanatory memorandum has been updated.

The purpose of the addendum is to provide additional material to the explanatory memorandum to the Migration Amendment (Protection and Other Measures) Bill 2014. The addendum is a response to a request by the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills in its 10th report of 2014 dated 27 August 2014 and questions that had arisen in relation to certain measures in this bill as it progressed through the Senate. I am happy if the senator would like me to re-read exactly what I have already read into the Hansard. Following consideration of and reports by the Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs Committee, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Scrutiny of Bills Committee, we have:

tabled an addendum to the explanatory memorandum to the bill which provides further detail on certain amendments made by schedules 1 and 4 of the bill. These measures relate

as I have already stated—

to the identity and integrity measures in schedule 1 of the bill, specifically proposed sections 91W, 91W(a) and 43A; and to the Migration Review Tribunal and Refugee Tribunal integrity measures relating to providing oral statements of reasons following an oral decision.

In relation to the reasons for providing an oral decision, again, I took the Senate through those in my summing-up speech, where I stated:

The tribunals will also have the discretionary power to provide an oral rather than written statement of reasons following an oral decision, but a written one will be available—

and this was one of the concerns that was raised—

on request within 14 days. It is not anticipated that oral decisions and statements will be made in complex cases but will be reserved only for a review of cases involving simple facts and very straightforward statutory interpretation where the relevant case law is well settled.