Legislative Review Committee: Workload of the Legislative Review Committee

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (11:44): On behalf of the member for Narungga, I move:

That the report of the committee, entitled Workload of the Legislative Review Committee, be noted.

I move that this report be noted as a member of the Legislative Review Committee. I note that Mr Ellis as a previous member was determined in the Notice Paper to speak to this, so my contribution will be relatively brief other than to say—

The SPEAKER: I presume on behalf of the member for Narungga, the member for Flinders?

Mr TRELOAR: Yes, on behalf of the member for Narungga, although he no longer sits on that committee. That is the situation. But, certainly as a member of the committee for this calendar year thus far, what I have come to know, as other members have known in the past, is that the committee has an onerous workload. Obviously, we need to review not just regulations made within this parliament but also those regulations from local government. The committee has two wonderful and hardworking staff, Mr Matt Balfour and Ms Maureen Affleck, but we certainly feel as a committee that to a degree we are being overwhelmed by the amount of regulation we are asked to deal with, particularly given that we have scrutiny principles that we need to apply to ensure that our job is done properly.

I will acknowledge the other members of the committee: the member for Ramsay, the member for MacKillop, the Hon. Nicola Centofanti of the other place, who ably chairs the committee, the Hon. Connie Bonaros, and the Hon. Irene Pnevmatikos. It is a big committee. It works exceptionally well under the leadership of our capable Chair. In essence we are highlighting the workload and the necessity we feel for more support in managing this situation. We certainly have been speaking with the Clerk of the Legislative Council about staff support, and I think we as committee members would all be supportive of that, as would our existing staff members.

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON (Ramsay) (11:46): I also rise to speak on the report on the workload of the Legislative Review Committee. I joined the committee a short while ago, and shortly thereafter there was an added role given to the committee, which is to consider petitions. In general, and for a very long period of time, it has been about the scrutiny function of that committee. I have to say that technically we are looking at what consultation has taken place for the regulations. Have we got enough information here?

It is a bit of a dry process from time to time, but it is, actually, where I would say the rubber hits the road. It is often where fees that have increased for a certain amount in a certain industry are looked at, and the question is: what consultation has taken place, and, if it was to be tested in a court, are we clear about what the intention of this legislation was and then how it is represented in the regulation?

Because of that—the key legal and constitutional safeguarding that we do within that committee—we do have a staff member who has that experience: someone who is legally trained and a research officer. They draft inquiry reports, and they compile briefings as well. It is critical for us to hold the government to account. We have raised from time to time the poor quality of the supporting reports.

It seems to me that not everyone either has the experience or is given the detail of what is necessary for us to make sure that we are making regulations that have actually gone out there easy to read and easy to understand. So quite often we would have to go back to the minister and say, 'We need more detail here,' and that takes quite a bit of time—to get to that point. Recently there was another aspect added—to look at the eligible petitions. The member for Florey brought that to this house. Petitions that are over 10,000 signatures are now referred to the Legislative Review Committee.

I have to say the expectation was that there would be only a few of those petitions, but even in the short time that I have been on the committee we have had a petition about the government's retention of the motor vehicle registry and Service SA. That was signed by quite a few people and was brought to the committee as well. In fact, let me remind you that it was signed by 12,705 residents of South Australia who expressed their concern about this government's intention to close three Service SA offices.

We know there is already a line-up to go to Modbury, Prospect and Mitcham as well. The question is: what was the intention? Was it to reduce access for the public, for South Australians to register their motor vehicles and do other different substantial transactions? South Australians spoke very clearly with their voice and, of course, 12,000 residents came in.

The second petition was regarding planning reform, with 13,928 residents of South Australia signing their name about concerns to the changes to the planning act. Let me just tell you that that required a lot of time and a lot of focus. We asked for submissions and for people to come in, we talked to experts in the field from different areas, whether it be heritage or architects, and that took quite some time. Of course, that is something that the committee then has to put together in a report. The third petition, petition No. 13 of 2020, was the maintenance of the current composition of the Teachers Registration Board. That was signed by 11,606 residents of South Australia. Recently, we were referred the climate change petition, and that has recently arrived with committee.

The committee inquires into, considers and reports under section 16B of the Parliamentary Committees Act 1991. The question is: do we have enough staff? That is really why the report was written today. When we look at other jurisdictions, both WA and Queensland have three staff members in a committee who look at petitions and scrutinises subordinate legislation.

What the report focuses on is that, yes, we have been asked to do this additional work, but the intention was that we thought that we would only have a few petitions, but people are far more active than we expected, or maybe one might say that this government is making decisions that make people unhappy and therefore more than 10,000 have added their names. Whatever the case may be, this requires more attention and more support.

An additional proposal, as well as having additional staff, is to also allow the committee to refer petitions to another standing committee, and that needs to be considered. It has been suggested within the report, for example, that the Environment Resources and Development Committee might be better able and well experienced to deal with the climate change petition. At the moment that is something that is not able to occur, and it is a proposal that is talked about within this report.

I rise today to note the report and consider that it is important that we do our job well on these committees and that we are adequately supported with experienced and skilled staff. I want to say thank you to Matt Balfour and Maureen Affleck, who do a great deal of work on what is very technical information and provide us with great assistance, but they have been put under great pressure. I support this report that we should consider getting additional people and additional staff members for the committee.

Mr TRELOAR (Flinders) (11:53): I would like to thank the member for Ramsay for her comprehensive summary of the report, an excellent contribution, and also her valued work on the committee. It goes without saying that when committees of this parliament come together they are sometimes led down partisan lines, but I would like to think that our committee particularly tries to avoid that and does its very best to apply the scrutiny principles, the research necessary to give proper consideration to legislation and regulations, not just from this parliament but also more and more from local government as well.

I am pleased to report also that we are just about done for this year, at least with cat by-laws, which is certainly something we are very pleased to tick off. I wholeheartedly support the report and move that it be noted.

Motion carried.