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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 9 Hansard (6 September) . . Page.. 2889 ..

MR HARGREAVES (10.46): I move:

Mr Speaker, this bill provides for the presentation of regulatory impact statements to accompany subordinate legislation in instances where there is a likelihood of the imposition of appreciable costs on the community, or part of the community.

Regulatory impact statements are provided with subordinate legislation in New South Wales, Queensland, Tasmania and Victoria to allow proper scrutiny of the subordinate legislation. The Commonwealth provides its scrutineers with something approaching such statements, but not in the same form, nor is this information as complete as it is in those states which provide regulatory impact statements.

The meeting of chairs and deputy chairs of scrutiny committees in all jurisdictions has considered the issue, and has agreed that regulatory impact statements are the most appropriate way of providing legislatures with valuable supplementary information about subordinate legislation. I have applied the Queensland model as the basis of this legislation.

Regulatory impact statements are not expected to increase substantially the workload of those who support the government of the day, because the provision of additional information will speed the passage of legislation, and ensure that consultation with stakeholders occurs well before the passage of such legislation. This will probably avoid the extra work involved when, after the passage of subordinate legislation that adversely affects a stakeholder, the issue erupts into the public arena.

It is not envisaged that significant numbers of regulatory impact statements would be developed. The intention is that they be applied only where the subordinate legislation has a significant impact on the community.

Examples of interstate regulatory impact statements are regulations for children's services in 1997 in Victoria, 205 pages; a review of the Egg Industry Act in 1998 in Tasmania, 73 pages; and funeral funds regulations in 1994 in New South Wales, 63 pages. Regulatory impact statements are not always huge volumes. The regulatory impact statement concerning the rural lands protection amendment regulation in Queensland was only 11 pages long.

It should be stressed that this bill only addresses subordinate legislation and not primary legislation. Regulatory impact statements are provided to stimulate and provide background for debate on a piece of significant subordinate legislation. Debate is always available for primary legislation, and all primary legislation is brought to the attention of members through the notice paper.

Only too often subordinate legislation passes unnoticed through the scrutiny process, because of the very volume of administrative matters covered by subordinate legislation, such as the raising of fees and charges, the creation or amendment of building regulations, and so on. One feature of this bill is that it stipulates when a regulatory impact statement is required and when it is not. I recall hearing a comment from

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