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Legislative Council - Fifty-Second Parliament, First Session (52-1)
2011-02-24 Daily Xml
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CLASSIFICATION (PUBLICATIONS, FILMS AND COMPUTER GAMES) (EXEMPTIONS AND APPROVALS) AMENDMENT BILL

Conference

The Hon. B.V. FINNIGAN (Minister for Industrial Relations, Minister for State/Local Government Relations, Minister for Gambling) (14:18): I have to report that the managers for the two houses conferred together, and it was agreed that we should recommend to our respective houses:

No.1. That the Legislative Council no longer insists on its amendment but makes the following amendment in lieu thereof:

Clause 4, page 3, lines 3 to 12 [clause 4(2), inserted subsection (2)]—

Delete inserted subsection (2) and substitute:

(2) An application made to the Minister or the National Director under subsection (1) must comply with the requirements prescribed by regulation.

and that the House of Assembly agrees thereto.

No. 2. That the Legislative Council no longer insists on its amendment but makes the following amendment in lieu thereof:

Clause 7, page 3, lines 24 to 26 [clause 7(2), inserted subsection (1a)]—

Delete inserted subsection (1a) and substitute:

(1a) An application made to the Minister or the National Director under subsection (1) must comply with the requirements prescribed by regulation.

and that the House of Assembly agrees thereto.

No. 3. That the Legislative Council no longer insists on its amendment but makes the following amendment in lieu thereof:

Clause 8, page 4, lines 6 to 8 [clause 8(2), inserted subsection (1a)]—

Delete inserted subsection (1a) and substitute:

(1a) An application made to the Minister or the National Director under subsection (1) must comply with the requirements prescribed by regulation.

and that the House of Assembly agrees thereto.

No.4. That the Legislative Council no longer insists on its amendment but makes the following amendment in lieu thereof:

Clause 9, page 4, line 39 to page 5, line 5 [clause 9, inserted section 79C(2)]—

Delete inserted subsection (2) and substitute:

(2) An application made to the Minister under subsection (1) must comply with the requirements prescribed by regulation.

and that the House of Assembly agrees thereto.

And that the following consequential amendments be made to the Bill:

Clause 5, page 3, after line 15 [clause 5]—Insert:

(2) Section 77(2)—delete subsection (2) and substitute:

(2) An application for a direction under subsection (1) may be made by an approved organisation and must comply with the requirements prescribed by regulation.

(3) Section 77(4)—delete subsection (4) and substitute:

(4) An application for a direction under subsection (3) must comply with the requirements prescribed by regulation.

Clause 9, page 4—

Lines 21 to 23 [clause 9, inserted section 79B(1)]—Delete:

'the Minister may, with the agreement of the National Director, refer the application to the National Director for determination'

and substitute:

'the application will, subject to subsection (2), be taken to have been made to the National Director under this Part'

Lines 24 to 32 [clause 9, inserted section 79B(2)]—Delete inserted subsection (2) and substitute:

(2) Subsection (1) does not apply if—

(a) the Minister decides that he or she will determine that application; or

(b) the National Director or the applicant notifies the Minister that he or she objects to the application being determined by the National Director.

Clause 10, page 5, lines 9 and 10 [clause 10, inserted subsection (2)]—Delete inserted subsection (2) and substitute:

(2) The regulations may—

(a) be of general application or vary in their application according to prescribed factors;

(b) provide that a matter or thing in respect of which regulations may be made is to be determined according to the discretion of the Minister or the National Director.

Consideration in committee of the recommendations of the conference.

The Hon. B.V. FINNIGAN: I move:

That the recommendations from the conference be agreed to.

The Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) (Exemptions and Approvals) Amendment Bill as introduced was intended to provide for applications for exemptions under the Classification (Publications, Films and Computer Games) Act 1995 to be made to the minister or the national director. South Australia is the only jurisdiction that does not allow applications for exemptions to be made to the national director. All other states and territories confer the power to grant exemptions and approve organisations on the director either alone or concurrently with the minister.

The bill as introduced was not supported, principally because the amendments would result in a more rigorous application process for seeking exemptions from the minister than that required when making applications to the national director. That matter has been resolved in discussion between the houses. The bill in its current form will mean that applications to the minister will be taken to be applications made to the director, unless the applicant objects to the national director dealing with the application, the national director objects to dealing with the application or the minister chooses to deal with the application.

The bill provides that an application made to the minister must comply with the requirements prescribed by regulation. 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. The bill achieves the result sought and I thank the Hon. Mr Wade and other members of the conference for working to achieve this sensible result.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: I thank the minister for his summation of the proceedings and I concur with them. I also take the opportunity to thank the government on behalf of the opposition for constructively engaging in what has proved to be a useful process.

The Hon. M. PARNELL: I have some concerns with the way these businesses are dealt with in the house. It was my expectation to hear, as we have always heard, that the conference would be continuing. It is a procedural motion that is moved at the start of each day, and it would have been a courtesy to the crossbench for the members of the deadlock committee to have told us that they had reached agreement and that we would be debating it as a matter of priority before question time.

Whilst I do not propose to stand in the way of any agreement that has been reached, I think it is an appalling state of affairs that a large proportion of this chamber is not shown the courtesy of being told that an agreement on a deadlock conference has been reached and that we are going to be debating today. I am not going to point the finger at anyone in particular. The government would certainly take the bulk of the responsibility as the managers of business in this place. My plea would be: next time we have a deadlock conference, could the manager of government business tell us when a resolution is reached and that it will be back on the Notice Paper.

The CHAIR: We will not have a debate on this.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: It would be appropriate to correct the record slightly. The Hon. Mr Parnell implies that only the major parties were involved in the discussions. That is not true. One of the crossbenchers, who was most interested in the matter, was actually a member of the Legislative Council team and was fully involved in the discussions.

Motion carried.

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