Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Multicultural Engagement) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Parliamentary Business Resources Legislation Amendment (Review Implementation and Other Measures) Bill 2024. Following the moving and passage of government amendments, the opposition will be supporting this bill, noting that the Special Minister of State has provided undertakings to the opposition on the intention of several measures in the bill and provided briefings on their operation, which we sincerely thank him for.

The bill represents significant changes to the framework for parliamentary business resources. The bill would amend the Parliamentary Business Resources Act 2017, the PBR Act and the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority Act 2017, the IPEA Act, to respond to a number of recommendations of the independent review into the Parliamentary Business Resources Act 2017 and the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority Act 2017, which is referred to in my comments as 'the review' and was conducted in late 2021.

The bill contains schedules that implement recommendations 8, 11 and 23 of the review. Recommendation 8 stated:

The Government consider amending the IPEA Act to expressly facilitate IPEA providing personal advice about staff use of travel resources to their employing parliamentarian and advice about parliamentarians' use of travel resources to their staff.

This change will allow for better access and practise of the correct use of expenses—something that we all agree on—in particular, giving clarity under the legislation as to who can receive this advice. Recommendation 11 stated:

The Government should consider amending the PBR Act to clarify that a former parliamentarian can apply for a ruling and IPEA can make such a ruling.

Again, these changes will ensure that, as the scheme is now seeing parliamentarians leave the parliament who were using resources under the PBR framework, those former parliamentarians can still access some of the benefits of IPEA's ability to make rulings after they have ceased being parliamentarians. It is an important change that will provide these individuals clarity, if required. Recommendation 23 stated:

The Government should consider moving the office expenses administration function to IPEA.

This recommendation is a significant change. It represents the movement of a significant management of the resources for parliamentarians from the Department of Finance to the Independent Parliamentary Expenses Authority and will mean that, for the first time since the creation of the modern resources framework, the department will no longer manage the majority of the day-to-day resourcing for parliamentarians and their offices. Such a significant change will require an appropriate amount of education and management, to ensure staff and offices adjust to this change as smoothly as possible.

The original bill proposed that this change would occur from 1 July this year, as the department advised that the most appropriate time to make the change is at the end of a financial year. The bill will also make minor and technical amendments to the conditions of our workplace, resolve administrative issues, make technical amendments and provide some measures that will modernise the systems that support parliamentarians in their work. Noting the significance of some of these changes and the short time originally proposed in the bill to introduce them, the government has indicated that some of these changes will take effect from 1 July 2025. This will allow for appropriate consultation and preparation to be undertaken to ensure officers and staff adjust to the new model of resource management. We sincerely thank the minister, his office and everyone involved in relation to these initiatives for their work—for continuing to work collaboratively on this bill and for continuing the longstanding bipartisanship on these matters.