Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move Greens amendment (1) on sheet 1137:

(1) Schedule 1, item 2, page 3 (line 12), omit "notifiable instrument", substitute "legislative instrument".

Let me state clearly the aim of this amendment. We agree with concerns raised by the Standing Committee on the Scrutiny of Bills and the submission made by Mr Andrew Ray and Ms Charlotte Michalowski that the deployment of armed forces should be a matter of last resort and that the decisions to call them out should be subject to stringent parliamentary oversight—not a radical contention, you would have thought. This amendment seeks to ensure a layer of parliamentary scrutiny by making call-out orders subject to disallowance. While we understand that there are concerns around the timeliness and complexity of the call-out process, we do not accept that efficiency concerns cannot be addressed in other ways. We believe that efficiency concerns can be addressed in other ways, and it is not a reason to move past legitimate scrutiny by elected representatives.

Throughout the inquiry it was made clear that the desire to streamline the call-out process removes important processes of scrutiny in a way that is not only unjustified but also unnecessary. It is our view that a decision to call out reservists is a significant decision, and it should be one that is deliberated and able to be decided on by the parliament via disallowance of an instrument. Indeed, this view and position were put to the committee by a number of experts, and we entirely agree. Therefore, I commend this amendment to the chamber.