Judith Adams (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, congratula­tions on your appointment. It is my first opportunity to congratulate you.

At the request of Senator Fifield, I present a report of the Senate Standing Committee on the Scrutiny of Bills. I also lay on the table Scrutiny of Bills Alert DigestNo. 7 of 2011, dated 6 July 2011.

Ordered that the report be printed.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I seek leave to incorporate a tabling statement in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The statement read as follows—

In tabling the Committee's Alert Digest No.7 of 2011 and its Seventh Report of 2011, I particularly draw the Senate’s attention to the Social Security and Other Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Matters) Bill 2011.

The purpose of the Bill is to amend the Social Security (Administration) Act 1999 with the intention of ensuring that a large number of convictions for social security fraud are not set aside. The Bill seeks to insert, with retrospective effect to March 2000, an independent obligation for a person to inform the department of changes of circumstances that might affect the payment of a social security benefit.

The need for the Bill has arisen as the result of a recent Supreme Court decision in which the court held that as the relevant legislation did not impose a duty to inform the department of changes in circumstances the omission to do so could not apply to the offence and a conviction for 'obtaining a financial advantage' was set aside.

The Scrutiny Committee's view is that the principle against retrospective legislation is not absolute and that there are situations in which retrospective legislation is justified. However, in the circumstances the Committee has strong reservations about (1) the use of retrospective legislation to impose or confirm criminal guilt, and (2) whether the justifications for its use in this instance are adequate.

The full details of the Committee's view about this and other bills are available in the alert digest and report I am tabling today, and I commend the Committee’s Alert Digest No. 7 of 2011 and Seventh Report of 2011 to the Senate.

Question agreed to.