SCRUTINY OF ACTS AND REGULATIONS COMMITTEE
The 53rd Parliament
NINTH REPORT TO PARLIAMENT ON SUBORDINATE LEGISLATION
ANNUAL REPORT
concerning
STATUTORY RULES SERIES 1995 and 1996
Ordered to be Printed
Melbourne
Government Printer
May 1997
No. 41 Session 1996/1997
This Report relates to two years of scrutiny of statutory rules.
The Report is also the first Report to the Parliament under the Subordinate Legislation
Act 1994. In 1996, the Subordinate Legislation Subcommittee prepared an Information
Paper on the Fisheries (Abalone) Regulations 1996. The purpose of this Paper was to inform
Members of Parliament and Victorians generally of what it is that the Subcommittee
actually does. This Report provides more such information.
The Subcommittee work complements that of the full Scrutiny of
Acts and Regulations Committee in its principal task of scrutinising legislative Bills. It
is a group committed to performing its functions well and has been encouraged over the
past two years that it has not needed to report to the Parliament for failure to comply
with the Subordinate Legislation Act.
The United Kingdom experience while not directly comparable to
Victoria is salutary. The following is extracted from an article in The Times of 20
November, 1993:
How can this meeting, a regular occurrence, the first and last
look Parliament gets at the great bulk of red tape and regulation that its own legislation
is spewing out, semi-digested, every week, be anything other than a sham? Acts of
Parliament, these days, tell you nothing. But the powers they give ministers to make
orders are immense. It is these the Statutory Instruments (SIs) that Parliament can really
do more than nod at glumly as they pass that are now the nub of modern policy-making. MPs
cannot possibly drag each SI through the Chamber. So they have set up a joint committee
with the Lords to take a look at them. The committee cannot possibly read them all, so it
leaves it to its clerk to do so. The clerks cannot really digest the lot either: they
light on a few for closer enquiryÖ..Technical errors will usually be spotted. But the
larger political questions should this minister be making this order at all? Isn't this
new regulation taking a sledgehammer to a nut? will seldom be asked. It is not working.
The scandal is one of the great, unremarked disgraces of our modern constitution. There is
far, far too much. One poor little committee cannot possibly attend to it all. Not half of
it; not to a tenth of it; not to a hundredth. I know. I sat on the joint committee for
years as an MP. The whips asked me to do it, no doubt to make me feel useful. I was
useless. So were most of the others. Look at next Tuesday afternoon's meeting. The agenda
alone runs to 11 pages. There are some 171 SIs to consider, the longest of which runs to
188 pages. Besides imposing sanctions on Liberia, they provide for the seizure of animals,
the inspection of schools, the construction of motor vehicles, and a hundred other
concerns, some trivial, some vast. The committee does its best. But its chairman,Ö, sharp
sighted and thorough , would admit it is forced to bite off more than it can chew.
Yesterday in the chamber, MPs debated foreign affairs. Colourful opinions were expressed,
for this is the surface of our legislature. Underneath, race whole navies of nuclear
submarines, going the other way.
In June, 1996 the Scrutiny of Legislation Committee of the
Parliament of Queensland visited us. They are grappling not only with the scrutiny of
Bills but are also looking at an equivalent to the Regulatory Impact Statement for
subordinate legislation which has been on our agenda for some years. A useful exchange
took place.
In February, 1997 Carlo Carli, MP and I together with Helen
Mason, the Executive Officer of the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee,
participated in the Fourth Commonwealth Conference on Delegated Legislation in Wellington,
New Zealand. 80 representatives from Parliaments throughout the world were in attendance.
I delivered a paper drawing from the Victorian experience of examining regulations which
impact upon our marine environment. My remarks were by way of response to former chairman,
Mr Perton's, foray into the next wave of regulation reform - that of regulatory
efficiency. There is a review of the conference and papers presented to be found in
Chapter 3 of this Report.
Back in Melbourne, after the conference in New Zealand, the
Committee was able to lend assistance to the Parliamentary Law Adviser of the Parliament
of the Republic of South Africa. That Parliament is presently working on a proposal for
scrutiny of bills and regulations and it was useful for the Parliamentary Law Officer to
sit in on a meeting of the Subordinate Legislation Subcommittee to observe our approach to
scrutiny of delegated legislation.
On 21 March, 1997 the Office of Regulation Reform and SARC
co-hosted a Seminar on Regulation Reform. It was an opportunity to canvass the many issues
currently on the agenda with respect to regulation by government. About 150 were in
attendance, including several representatives of industry. As chairman of the Subordinate
Legislation Subcommittee, I delivered a paper on why parliamentary scrutiny is so
important, and outlining the structure of the Subordinate Legislation Act 1994.
Readers of this Report will find Chapter I of the Report covers similar territory. I
commend it to you.
The Seminar was opened by the Minister for Small Business and
Tourism, the Honourable Louise Asher, MP. She outlined how Victoria is beating small
business "red tape". She reported that small business regulations had fallen
60.2% from 1241 in 1987 to 494 in 1996. The number of new regulations has also reduced by
40% from 278 in 1993 to 166 in 1996. The total of 869 regulations introduced from 1993 to
1996 was 43.8% lower than the 1546 produced from 1989 to 1992. This reduces the physical
load borne by the Subordinate Legislation Subcommittee but does not lessen the vigour with
which it approaches the task.
In conclusion, I thank all members of the Subcommittee for their
participation in what is a painstaking but essential task. The other members of the
Subcommittee are all new to the task and the learning curve climbed has been a steep one.
I acknowledge with gratitude their enthusiasm. The members I refer to are the Honourable
Maree Luckins, MLC; the Honourable Peter Katsambanis, MLC; Mary Gillett, MP and the
Honourable Don Nardella, MLC. I also acknowledge with appreciation the interest and advice
of Peter Ryan, MP who in his role as Chairman of the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations
Committee has provided help and practical insight into several of the more challenging
statutory rules.
I also extend my thanks to the staff of the Subcommittee. It is
their careful attention to detail which assists Subcommittee Members complete the
examination of so many statutory rules. I thank Tanya Coleman, Subordinate Legislation
Legal Officer for her skilled advice; and Rhonda MacMahon, Assistant Executive Officer and
Richard Kings for their conscientious preparation of paperwork. I would like to
acknowledge the assistance of previous staff members who served the Committee during the
period of this Report : Helen Roberts, Con Chara and Stephen Robertson.
Murray H Thompson, MP
Chairman
Subordinate Legislation Subcommittee
Scrutiny
of Acts and Regulations Committee
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