Senate Education and Employment Legislation Committee, , 1:58:32 to 2:04:02
Discussion on the legislative process, the potential for exposure drafts, and the complexities of costing the new court's registry and premises.
Topics: Workplace relations, Government spending
Speakers: Senator Paul Scarr, Greg Manning, Elizabeth Brayshaw, Simon Duggan, Unknown Speaker
By teams meeting?
23 July.
When the announcement was made, so as I understand.
That was the date of the announcement. No, I wasn't, I wasn't in involved in that.
Was anyone in the department involved in that?
Not that I'm aware of it.
Can you just check that?
Oh, we have we'll confirm that on notice, isn't it?
In my previous role in the legal and constitutional affairs committee, I was involved in the processes that led to the establishment of the FCF COA and also the establishment of the ART as a successor body to the AAT. So I'm going to assume a few things. Did the Law Council of Australia request that an exposure draft of the legislation be prepared which they'd be able to comment on prior to introduction of legislation? So just to provide you additional context, Ms. Brayshaw, the Law Council of Australia and other stakeholders in relation to, certainly in relation to the establishment of the ART raise substantial concerns that the engagement occurred in too short a way. As opposed to trying to amend legislation once it was introduced in the Parliament. So it goes to the issue of timing and how aggressive the timetable is and whether or not stakeholders are going to have the opportunity of a reasonable opportunity to give considered input which the departments can then consider and reflect in legislation before it's actually introduced to the Parliament. So what uh what response can you give us to those project timeline issues?
I might just raise one other general issue in relation to workplace relations. So there are established arrangements in relation to workplace relations for consultation on legislation. There is a committee on industrial legislation and also arrangements for discussions with states and territories given that some of the workplace relations system is underpinned by referrals. So of course, uh I I'm just raising that set, Senator, in case you weren't aware of those. In relation to the Law Council Australia, I I would assume that the proposition you're putting is correct, that they would want to see it and see it in advance notice. What I just don't know is whether or not the initial conversation they they're not.
Senator, I don't think we call them saying that putting that request, but I can take on notice if there was that. Because it was very much an initial consultation with them.
So what's the timeline? What's what's your indicative time?
The government's still making those decisions. The government will make that decision. So they have we aren't yet working to um a detailed timeline that government signed off on, for example, um, Senator. But um certainly we're fully aware that in the announcement, the Prime Minister and the other Minister's joint announcement, um, there was a commitment to consultation uh with all interested stakeholders before the court, and we'll um imagine the task force will be leading that and continuing on those conversations that started, but we're not able to sit down and give you dates of when that will be happening with a with a complete end date at the moment.
So when the minister sorry, when it was announced this initiative was announced, consultation was foreshadowed for this year and details coming soon. We're now in late October, we're about to go into November, soon we're going to be in the Christmas period, uh, and we still haven't got a consultation paper. Do you have any indicative timing you're working towards?
So, Senator, uh the first stage was to have those initial consultations with them and to set out some of the key issues. Uh we are working on further stages of consultation, but I don't have details that I can give you today, but we are conscious that we will need to do further consultation and
Like a paper that's released. So all stakeholders have an opportunity to provide input and that input's made public?
Senator, I think the those um the next form we will take is still still something where we don't have a final decision on yet, Senator, but I I would imagine there are I mean the proposal does give rise to um you know a lot of cross-cutting and and complex issues. So I would imagine something like that would be of assistance, but we're just unable to say for sure because of the.
I was involved in those other two processes, and I can tell you it's extraordinarily complicated. So I'm I'm mindful of the need for there to be for some consultation on timetables not adopted that are overly aggressive because uh that could lead to unintended consequences. Uh the minister has said she would like to set up the court quickly. Uh you don't have a target date yet for when you're hoping the court would be operative.
Mr. Manning provided evidence that the court line, you know, the timeline for implementation is subject to government decision. Minister Ishworth said publicly that she'd like to see the court operating as soon as practically possible. There's a lot of work to do before we get to that point.