Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I just want to take a few moments to associate myself with the remarks by Senator Fierravanti-Wells. When I first came into this place, I had, to be frank, no idea about this committee. Quite frankly, it's probably one of the committees where I most enjoy my time with colleagues, and it is good to see other colleagues on this committee in the chamber at the moment. It has been fascinating to see how our democracy works and being in the Senate, the house of review, keeping the executive accountable. I know there is only one member of the executive in the place currently. It is fair to say that we enjoy our time on the committee scrutinising the delegated legislation and the instruments, following up with ministers and ensuring that we as parliamentarians are doing our jobs as part of our democracy.

The Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation—and it has had other names along the way—is certainly one of the oldest committees in this place. Its purpose is to ensure that we are scrutinising delegated legislation enacted by members of the executive and that it is subject to appropriate scrutiny by the legislator.

It's a role of us in this place to write the laws of the land. I think many Australians would be surprised to learn just how much law is written. As we heard from the chair of the committee, close to 50 per cent is written, enacted and given the stamp of approval by the executive, not the parliament. Whilst there is no doubting that there is a role for such delegated legislation to exist, it is nonetheless appropriate that, in an instance where law is made by members of the executive, it is subject to appropriate oversight by this parliament and by this Senate, most importantly to disallow in instances where it is resolved by the Senate that such a measure is necessary.

As the report articulates, the volume of delegated legislation as a proportion of total Commonwealth law is substantial. Even more substantial is the proportion of this delegated legislation that is exempted from scrutiny. All Australians should be concerned at the readiness with which government is prepared to exempt delegated legislation from consideration by the parliament. As mentioned earlier, whilst there is merit in the existence of delegated legislation, one is right to question whether exemption provisions for this legislation is entirely in accordance with the principles of the separation of powers that make up all good systems of governance.

The interim report that's been tabled has a particular focus on the emergency delegated legislation that has come about as a result of the government's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost a quarter of these measures, some of which had a significant impact on the community, were exempted from disallowance. Questions as to whether the individual freedoms of our citizenry ought to be curtailed are some of the most significant that any decision-maker in this building may be forced to consider. Owing to this, those questions necessarily ought to be subject to as high a standard of democratic examination as one would expect in a nation such as ours. Regrettably, the report also finds instances where government falls short of this standard and the systemic reasons for how this has come about. As the Senate, as a democratically elected body representative of the community, we must resist this; after all, we are the house of review. Whilst I fully appreciate why government—any government, for that matter—would like to dispense with such inconvenience wherever possible, we owe it to those who have gone before us and, with much toil, have established our norms of parliamentary primacy in lawmaking to clearly demonstrate the bounds of the tolerance of this chamber.

I, like the chair, would like to place on the record my thanks and the thanks of Senator Carr, who is not here today, to the secretariat for their work. It would be fair to say that without the support of the secretariat we wouldn't have been able to produce a comprehensive report such as we are presenting today. I want to say thank you to my colleagues on the committee, in particular the chair and the deputy chair, for their advice and their wisdom. Perhaps one day I will chair such a committee and—