SUBORDINATE LEGISLATION (MISCELLANEOUS) AMENDMENT BILL

Introduction and First Reading

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (16:21): Obtained leave and introduced a bill for an act to amend the Subordinate Legislation Act. Read a first time.

Second Reading

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE (16:21): I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I have always been someone who is happy to adopt the good ideas of others and not reinvent the wheel for the sake of doing so. Someone I have a lot of time for and worked with closely and someone who is a very learned gentleman and who has now gone to greener pastures, probably where he will make a lot more money than he made in this place (the Hon. Rob Lawson) had a private member's bill—

The Hon. R.I. Lucas interjecting:

The Hon. R.L. BROKENSHIRE: Greener pastures. He has gone back to being a QC, where they make lots of money. Returning to the bill, the Hon. Rob Lawson had this bill as a private member's bill. I know that many members of parliament and the community and media have concerns. I will not take long to go through this now but it is important to highlight why I have introduced this bill. We have seen the merit of such a bill in recent times with the imitation firearms issue, where the government showed its contempt for the upper house by simply reintroducing regulations shortly after they had been disallowed. The government did a similar thing when WorkCover fee regulations were disallowed by this chamber, but then reintroduced them shortly thereafter.

I refer honourable members to the Hon. Robert Lawson's words in Hansard on 14 October 2009 when introducing the bill. I note that this bill passed the second reading on Thursday 3 December 2009 but was not advanced any further in the previous parliament. In this day and age where increasing numbers of laws impacting families and communities are being put through the parliament by regulation instead of as acts, it is important we reform the process through this bill, in particular, so that the present government cannot show contempt for parliament, as it has in the past; indeed, nor any future government.

Also, where a dispute is about one part of regulations, that part can be disallowed but the rest retained. At present we have a blunt tool for disputing regulations—that is, all or nothing. You have either got to throw the whole regulation out or you have to retain it. As the former member, the Hon. Rob Lawson MLC, pointed out, it is a shame to lose the rest. A quick illustration: council by-laws are mostly uniform. One might take issue, for instance, with laws making it illegal to kick a football or play cricket on the beach. The way the process currently works, you have to disallow all the by-laws, not just that aspect. The need for reform exists.

In a democratic parliament in a democratic state in the democratic nation that we still have, if the absolute majority of members of the Legislative Council believe that a regulation is not in the best interests of the South Australian community and they disallow it, it should not be reintroduced in that term in the same format as before. It is contempt of the parliament and the community of this state. It is something that we oppose, particularly when we also see a pattern—which I hope we can change—as occurred last year, that whenever we FOI'd, the minister got hold of that FOI (and I will have more to say about this later) and doctored, manipulated and twisted it, got it out to the media and destroyed the facts coming out. Again, that is undemocratic and it is time that we stood up on behalf of the South Australian community. I commend this bill to the house.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. T.J. Stephens.