Page 2654 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 5 June 2012
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delegation to ensure that, where a regulation purports to modify the operation of an enactment of this parliament, we have the opportunity to disallow the regulation before it commences.
We believe that this is an appropriate amendment because it is the middle ground between simply not supporting the clause and the excessive delegation proposed in the bill. What it means is that the minister would have some ability to retain the power to take these sorts of steps, but it would provide the Assembly with an opportunity to subject those decisions to scrutiny. We have a disallowable period where we could come into this place and debate a matter if we felt it was of such concern that it warranted a possible disallowance.
In conclusion, the essence of these proposed amendments is, as I say, not to undermine the approach to national uniformity but, rather, to ensure that as representatives here in the ACT we continue to fulfil our responsibilities and ensure that laws past affecting the residents of the territory have received a suitable level of oversight. We are concerned that, the way the national legislation has been designed, that capability of the Assembly is being removed. I believe that the amendments that I have put forward today give us back that capability whilst continuing to see us operate as part of a national movement.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for Police and Emergency Services and Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development) (4.43): The government will not be supporting the amendments proposed by Mr Rattenbury. The proposed clauses would impede the operation of the national scheme in the ACT. The point of adopting a framework law is that the framework is the same in all jurisdictions participating. If the Assembly disallows at any point, the national framework starts to splinter. This detracts from commercial certainty of the law for national operators who would consider the ACT market less attractive.
The proposed clause conflicts with the intent of clause 9(1) of the bill. The clause is contrary to the intent of clause 6 of the Australian energy market agreement, which is that each of the parties agrees to further develop and implement a national legislative framework for the energy market comprising the Australian energy market legislation with consistent application and effect within each party’s jurisdiction.
The proposed clause is likely to mean that the ACT’s implementing legislation will not receive approval through the Ministerial Council on Energy. The ACT may not be able to participate in the NECF if this clause is adopted, thereby derailing all of the improvements that the bill will provide to ACT consumers. The proposed clause is of significant concern to the government. We believe that the most appropriate way to deal with this matter is to adopt the legislation without this provision.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (4.44): The Canberra Liberals will not be supporting these amendments, not because they are lacking in merit in their own right but for a couple of reasons. Firstly, this piece of legislation has been around for a while. Mr Seselja’s office received these amendments this morning, which was fairly late notice from the Greens.
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