Statutes Amendment Bill

Members, we come now to Part 32, the debate on clauses 135 to 139, “Amendments to Public Service Act 2020”. The question is that Part 32 stand part.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Another one of my favourite Acts to look at, the Public Service Act. I looked at some of these changes in detail, and I’ve kind of satisfied myself in relation to some of the questions I had around clause 139; I think I understand that. I’ve looked and there is a definition of an interdepartmental venture. There are boards; it was actually quite interesting seeing the different interdepartmental venture boards that are outlined in the Public Service Act, so I won’t ask the Minister about that. But I did want to ask about clause 137(2). This is a change to Schedule 3 of the Act, specifically a change to clause 16(1). Now, it’s, maybe, a slightly minor point, but essentially, as it currently stands, the commissioner is required to give the Minister a briefing every three years. Now, this bill changes that to “in every 3-year period after 7 August 2020”. which seems a bit unusual.

Additionally, it won’t be news to anyone in this House, although, it is still Tuesday, which means we have suspended time in some manner, that we, in fact, have missed a three-year period after 7 August 2020—in fact, two three-year periods now. The question I have is: why make this change where it appears to give retrospective duties in the past to the piece of legislation—and I might be misunderstanding this, and the Minister may want to clarify—which are unable to be met by the commissioner due to the fact that 7 August 2020 is now over six years ago?

I thank the member for her question. I’m advised that this change—replacing “every 3 years” with “in every 3-year period”, following the commencement of this section—will clarify the time frames for agencies to deliver their long-term insights briefings. So it’s clarifying the preferred interpretation of the clause, and I understand it will not affect time frames to deliver the first briefings.

Thank you, Mr Chair. I have such a minute and pedantic question. I hope the Minister is able to prove me wrong in terms of my interpretation. I just want to check—“after 7 August 2020”, for me, implies after that, which means 8 August 2020. The Royal assent for this bill is the 6 August 2020. Does that mean 7 August gets skipped altogether? I think that one day, at this stage, is now inconsequential, but I would just like to check my interpretation by the Minister.

I don’t believe that there’s an issue there. That’s not been pointed out to me at all. In fact, I’ve been told that it will not affect time frames to deliver first briefings. I think the key words here might be the commencement of this section. I am understanding that there will be no effect to the time frames.

Just a follow-up. Thank you to the Associate Minister of Justice again. I echo the comments of my colleague Rachel Brooking, we’re very grateful for the Minister engaging with us in good faith when answering these questions. The answer in relation to the long-term insights briefings, those are currently due to be repealed, in the sense that there will be a requirement to have, as I understand, one long-term insights briefing done by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet now, and the rest of the—I always forget the exact number, but it’s over 20; maybe somewhere between 20 and 34—long-term insights briefings that are required to be done will be abolished by the Public Service Amendment Act that the Government is currently putting through.

I know that the policy question is not for the Minister to ask in that debate; that’s for the Minister for Public Service. But just maybe if the officials could clarify that because there is substantive change happening to long-term insights briefings under a bill that is currently due to be reported back to the House from select committee shortly: will these changes still be drafted in the way that will make them longstanding? We don’t want to see, of course, these come back in another Statutes Amendment Bill straight away; we would like to make sure that they were able to at least survive the passage of the changes to the long-term insights briefing. So not really a policy question, but a technical question: due to that change, are these provisions still fit for purpose? I appreciate that this bill went through the select committee prior to that bill. So that’s really why I’m asking that question.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Yeah, it’s a good question to ask, but we’re dealing with the bill that we have here. While there’s another bill that might be under way, it hasn’t gone through the process of the House. We are dealing with an issue that we found that has, of course, got cross-party support, so we will fix this here and, should there be any other changes in any other legislation, we would all hope that the transitional provisions would pick up any changes that would need to be made in the future.

Part 32 agreed to.

For those on the edge of their seat in anticipation, there are 10 more parts left to go of this.

Part 34 Amendments to Radiocommunications Act 1989