Page42 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 2 December 2020
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The bill therefore includes amendments to these measures, substituting current expiry dates and putting in new expiry provisions aligned with the expiry of the COVID-19 Emergency Response Act. This will be 12 months after the COVID declaration has ceased to be enforced. Members would be aware that the current declaration is presently due to end on 17 February next year. So the measures will remain in the relevant act for 12 months from the date that a COVID declaration, as further extended, ceases to be enforced. In the event that a further COVID emergency declaration is made in this period, the measure will once again become operative, as long as this occurs within 12 months of the end of the last declaration.
The purpose of this rolling expiry arrangement is to ensure that emergency response measures can be available to support operational and service responses in circumstances where there is a break of no more than 12 months between the emergency declaration being enforced. In most cases the measures can only be used if a COVID-19 emergency is enforced.
The bill also amends the expiry arrangements for other measures such as the Crimes Act, the Drugs of Dependence Act and the Evidence (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act which currently will expire on the first day that there is not a COVID emergency in force and part 12.3 of the Corrections Management Act, which currently expires 120 days after the COVID Emergency Response Act expires. The bill proposes that the expiry of these measures will now also align with the expiry of the COVID Emergency Response Act, being 12 months after a COVID declaration has ceased to be in force.
A small number of measures have been amended so that their expiry is not aligned with the expiry of the emergency response act. For example, the measures in the Associations Incorporation Act are currently due to expire on 8 April next year. These have been extended for a further six months and will now expire on 8 October next year. These measures allow incorporated associations to hold meetings other than in person, using alternative forms of communication to allow for proxy arrangements and to allow the registrar-general to give general extensions of time for prescribed periods within which certain things are required under the act. This further six-month transition period is necessary to give incorporated associations more time to amend their rules and to incorporate these more flexible arrangements, should they need them in the future.
The Supreme Court Act includes a measure which allows an accused to elect to be tried by a judge alone for offences that would normally be required to be heard by a jury. Currently this expires on 31 December 2020, unless another date is prescribed by regulation. This bill amends the expiry provision for the measure to provide for expiry on 30 June 2021. The measure needs to continue to assist the court in rescheduling trials and to avoid a backlog in trials developing at a time when COVID physical distancing measures require two courtrooms for each trial. The Attorney-General will progress a regulation to continue the measure beyond 31 December, until after the bill, to make sure that the new expiry date 30 June next year can be considered by this place in February of next year.
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