CLASSIFICATION (PUBLICATIONS, FILMS AND COMPUTER GAMES) ACT

The Hon. S.G. WADE (16:33): I move:

That the general regulations under the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 2011, made on 26 May 2011 and laid on the table of this council on 7 June 2011, be disallowed.

This motion relates to the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games)(Exemptions and Approvals) Amendment Bill 2010. That bill was debated in this place in November last year. The bill aimed to place additional conditions on applying to the Attorney-General for approvals and exemptions in classifications and thereby making an application to the Attorney-General more onerous than applications to the National Director of the Classification Review Board.

While the bill claimed to expand options for South Australians on classification applications and exemptions, the barriers to approaching the state would have meant that it was a de facto exit from the field by the state. Following successful submissions to this council by the opposition, amendments were made to remove the new application fees and the requirement for additional information to be provided to the Attorney-General.

The amendments were rejected in the House of Assembly and were considered in a deadlock conference. At the end of the parliamentary processes, the government agreed to making the application process for exemption applications to the state comparable to that to the national director. This was a welcome and important change.

The opposition had been concerned that the Attorney-General may have been trying to shift responsibility for granting exemptions to the national director by hiding behind a wall of bureaucratic red tape and/or financial obstacles to abdicate the statutory role of granting exemptions and applications and thereby representing South Australian community values.

Following discussions, the commitment to level the playing field between state and national applications was agreed to. This commitment was reiterated on the public record by the then leader of the government in the Legislative Council (Hon. Bernard Finnigan) on 24 February 2011 when he said:

Regulations will be made to the effect that an application to the minister or the national director must be made in accordance with any requirements of the national director so that the application process will be no more onerous than if made to the minister.

However, the regulations recently laid before this parliament—which by this motion, I seek to disallow—provide the following in section 4(2):

The Minister may, in relation to an application made under section 76, 77, 79 or 79A of the Act that is being determined by the Minister, require the applicant to provide to the Minister any additional information of a kind that the Minister considers necessary to determine the application.

Such provisions could be used by an attorney-general to discourage applications through bureaucratic roadblocks, effectively achieving the unamended intention of the bill. The use of the regulations in this way would not be consistent with the agreement made and the commitment given on the public record.

Considering critical comments that the Attorney-General has made in the other place, I know that he will be indignant that I have chosen to move this motion without consulting him. I would make the point that the minister chose to make these regulations contrary to the public commitment without consulting me. If the government is committed to honouring that agreement, it will redraft section 4(2) of the regulations and would therefore have no problems with the current set of regulations being disallowed.

If the government is not committed to the undertakings given by the former leader of the government in the council and wishes to retain the ability to use the regulation to create hurdles, we would regard that as a breach of a commitment and a disregard for the will of this council. For this reason, we ask the council to support the integrity of negotiations between the houses and between the government and the non-government elements of this parliament, and for this reason we urge the council to support the disallowance of these regulations so that the intent behind the council's amendments to the legislation can be honoured and upheld.

Debate adjourned on motion of Hon. I.K. Hunter.