Budapest Convention and Related Matters Legislation Amendment Bill

Members, we now come to our final debate, clauses 1 and 2. This is the debate on clauses 1 and 2, “Title” and “Commencement”. The question is that clause 1 stand part.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Title and commencement: very straightforward. The title of the bill is deliberate and clear. It sets out that it’s the “Budapest Convention and Related Matters Legislation Amendment Act”, as it will eventually be. It’s very important because we need to be clear about what the Act will be called, because it implements changes to our statute law in order to give power to the Budapest Convention. For those who are looking for the legal foundation for matters agreed to in the convention, they need to be able to be directed straight to the piece of legislation which does that. That’s why it is called this, and I would suspect that any amendments would probably be not supported for those reasons.

When it comes to the commencement, there are, essentially, two dates that the bill comes into force. Subclause (3) of clause 2 outlines a number of sections that will come into force immediately, the day after Royal assent. Subclause (2) of clause 2 outlines that “Any part of this Act”—well, actually, let’s go to subclause (1) first. Apart from those provisions that come into force the day after Royal assent, all other parts of the Act will come “into force on a date or dates set by Order in Council.” However, there is a fall-back date where the entire Act will be enforced by 1 October 2025. That variable time or that time between now and 1 October as the last possible date is to provide Police the time to implement operational changes that they will need to make in order to give effect to the legislation. I’m advised that they are under way with those changes already and that they will make good progress, but, obviously, they have to wait till the bill comes into force before they can actually enact them.

That’s the reason why there’s a split commencement, but there is that fall-back date of 1 October 2025. Just to touch on Dr Xu-Nan’s question before, it is a—I don’t know what the description is—a human person, an individual person, not a legal person, for the purposes of the Crimes Act.

Thank you so much for your response to that question, Minister. I really do appreciate it.

Just on the commencement date, thank you for setting, I guess, the parameters of why that commencement date came about. Again, I will do the first two, and particularly looking at clause 2(1) and (2). Can I just check what the rationale is for having the Act come into force by Order in Council. Minister, you mentioned, in terms of the fall-back date being 1 October, that it is to give Police sufficient time. However, we heard just yesterday, in terms of the New Zealand - United Arab Emirates Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement—that particular legislation—that the commencement date for that was set by Order in Council because there are certain agreements and that that’s the date that was settled on by both parties to that particular agreement. Can I just check: is this date being set by Order in Council a decision that we made because of domestic reasons—i.e., the preparedness of the Police—or is it because of international reasons, because there are additional agreements and, I guess, additional things we need to sign or coordinate internationally with various partners? That’s my first question in terms of clarification.

I guess the second part of my question is—I mean, all dates that are not the day after Royal assent are, in some form, arbitrary. I just want to hear the Minister elaborate on why 1 October is that date that was chosen. It seems to not be three months after. We’re looking at, what, one or two months. Nine weeks seems like an odd time to choose. I just want to get clarification from the Minister on the rationale behind the 1 October date.

Sorry, I’m just writing down the exact phrase. So the reason that there’s an Order in Council required to bring the bill into force—there’s, essentially, two ways that bills can come into force: you set a date in the legislation or you set a date to be determined by Order in Council.

Now, sometimes those dates are left open for a Government to provide an Order in Council at some point. Actually, sitting on the Regulations Review Committee a few months ago, we were provided with a list of regulations which had never entered into force because no Government had ever provided the Order in Council for it. So, actually, I think it’s a sensible thing to provide, that the remainder of that can come into force by Order in Council but have a fall-back date as well so that the Act’s not languishing.

It is two reasons, mainly domestic. So one is to provide Police the time to operationalise some of the changes they’ll need to make. The other is that to meet all our international obligations, we need to deposit the instrument of accession, and you can only deposit the instrument of accession after the instrument is passed. So after the bill proceeds through the Parliament to its Royal assent—that’s the instrument of accession—that gets deposited, and so there needs to be some time built in to allow for that process to come into play as well. So it is part of that first one, part of that second one.

But, essentially, the reason why the gap is a little bit long—before October—is to give Police sufficient time. They’re pretty certain they will have it done by October, because that’s the date the Act will come into force, but they want a little bit of time before operationalising some of those things. But for things that the Police don’t need time on—you know, everything in clause 3—that will come into force straight away.

The question is that the Minister’s amendments to clause 2 set out on Amendment Paper 333 be agreed to.

Madam Speaker, the committee has considered the Budapest Convention and Related Matters Legislation Amendment Bill and reports it with amendment. I move, That the report be adopted.

Motion agreed to.

Report adopted.