REGULATION REVIEW COMMITTEE
Report: Scrutiny of National Scheme Legislation and the Desirability of Uniform Scrutiny Principles
Mr SHEDDEN (Bankstown) [1.03]: On Tuesday I tabled the report entitled "Discussion Paper No. 1 on Scrutiny of National Scheme Legislation and the Desirability of Uniform Scrutiny Principles". It outlines the response of the committees that scrutinise legislation in all Australian parliaments to the emerging need for effective parliamentary scrutiny of national scheme legislation. Each Australian Parliament has established a committee which scrutinises subordinate legislation. In New South Wales this is the committee I chair, the Regulation Review Committee. This week the Parliamentary Counsel produced figures on the numbers of regulations which have been repealed under the Subordinate Legislation Act, 1989. Honourable members will recall that the Subordinate Legislation Act came about as a result of the committee's recommendations in its report of July 1989. The figures show that when that Act commenced on 1 July 1990, the total number of statutory rules in New South Wales was 976, comprising a total of 15,075 pages. As at 1 September 1995, on the completion of the initial five stages of the staged repeal program, there were 542 statutory rules, comprising only 8,240 pages. This represents a massive reduction of 44 per cent in the number of statutory rules.
The Government Gazette of 1 September 1995, large as it was, chiefly represented the distillation of the great number of rules in the fifth stage of the program. The figures produced by the Parliamentary Counsel show that the number of rules in that stage were 271, while about 100 statutory rules were published in the Government Gazette on 1 September. In this sense the size of the Government Gazette can be regarded as a significant achievement for the Regulation Review Committee, for had the program not been a success, the Government Gazette would have comprised six volumes instead of two. For some time the Regulation Review Committee and all other parliamentary committees scrutinising legislation have noticed the emergence of a greater degree of national scheme legislation which brings about uniform laws in areas which previously had been dealt with differently in each Legislature. A number of these are mentioned in the paper, such as uniform laws on credit, evidence, defamation, road transport, trade measurement, dangerous goods, health services, therapeutic goods, radiation, offshore minerals and building. I emphasise that the discussion paper does not enter into the merits of these separate pieces of national scheme legislation. However, its main concern is the promotion of effective parliamentary scrutiny of legislation.
A number of alternatives are canvassed, and proposals are put forward for consideration. The chief object of the paper is to ensure that committees adopt uniform terms of reference when they consider such national scheme legislation. In this way they would be able to more effectively communicate with one another on the impact of that legislation. The other aspect of the paper is ensuring effective parliamentary oversight of proposed national scheme legislation. The two options considered at the end of the paper are to either ensure that uniform legislation is tabled as an exposure draft in each Parliament or to ensure that scrutiny committees are involved in the process of drafting uniform legislation. The second of those options would effectively exclude New South Wales from oversight of this legislation, as this State has not established a committee to scrutinise bills.
I stress that this is only a discussion paper released for comment by honourable members and the public generally on appropriate means of scrutiny of national scheme legislation. Before the discussion paper was prepared, committees approached the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General - SCAG - for appropriate direction in this area. The committee was informed that at the November 1993 SCAG meeting, Ministers considered the proposal to be a parliamentary matter and not one appropriate for oversight by SCAG. The committees are aware that the Council of Australian Governments is introducing procedures which require the preparation of regulatory impact statements and the carrying out of public
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consultation on proposals for national scheme legislation. It is, accordingly, timely that the role of Parliament and the parliamentary scrutiny of legislation committees with respect to national scheme legislation should now be discussed. The committees are keen to obtain submissions and comment on the discussion paper from the community at large. I commend the report. [Time expired.]
Report noted.
[Mr Deputy-Speaker left the chair at 1.12 p.m. The House resumed at 2.15 p.m.]