George Campbell (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of Senator Robert Ray, I present the fourth report of 2007 of the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills. I also lay on the table Scrutiny of Bills Alert Digest No. 4 of 2007, dated 21 March 2007.

Ordered that the report be printed.

I seek leave to move a motion in relation to the report.

Leave granted.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

I seek leave to incorporate a tabling speech in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The statement read as follows—

In tabling the Committee’s Alert Digest No 4 of 2007 I would like to draw the Senate’s attention to two bills on which the Committee has made comment: the Aged Care Amendment (Residential Care) Bill 2007; and the Education Services for Overseas Students Legislation Amendment Bill 2007.  Both of these bills include sections that may be considered to make rights, liberties or obligations unduly dependent upon insufficiently defined administrative powers, in breach of principle 1(a)(ii) of the Committee’s terms of reference.

Since its establishment the Committee has consistently drawn the Senate’s attention to legislation which gives administrators seemingly wide and ill-defined powers. 

In respect to the Aged Care Amendment (Residential Care) Bill 2007, the Committee has raised concerns in respect to subsection 25-4D(1) of the bill, which gives the Secretary of the Department of Health and Ageing the power to require further information from an applicant seeking to have their suspension to conduct appraisals and reappraisals of care recipients lifted. The secretary can request that this further information be provided ‘within 14 days after receiving the notice, or within such shorter period as specified in the written notice.’

The Committee’s concern is that, in its current form, the bill would allow the Secretary to request this information within very short periods of time, without having regard to what might be considered reasonable in the circumstances.   Where a bill confers powers of this nature on an official, the Committee has an expectation that these powers will have some limits placed on them, to ensure that they are not used in an arbitrary or unreasonable manner.

In respect to the Education Services for Overseas Students Legislation Amendment Bill 2007, the bill appears to afford an unduly wide discretion in the delegation of functions and powers to ‘an officer or employee of a State’.   The Committee’s expectation is that delegation powers will reflect the principle that the discretion to delegate ought to be limited in some way, either by limiting the class of person to whom the powers of functions can be delegated or by limiting the range of powers or functions that can be delegated.

I would also like to draw the Senate’s attention to the Committee’s Fourth Report of 2007 and, on behalf of the Committee, thank the Minister for Education, Science and Training, the Minister for Human Services and Mr Georganas MP, all of whom have committed to make amendments to explanatory memoranda or bills in response to concerns raised by the Committee in previous Alert Digests.

Question agreed to.