In November 2018, the Legislation Review Committee tabled its report into the operation of the Legislation Review Act 1987.

The Report made recommendations to Government designed to improve the rights scrutiny function of the Committee, being the function of reviewing whether a bill or regulation trespasses unduly on personal rights and liberties, or makes rights, liberties or obligations unduly dependent upon insufficiently defined administrative powers or non-reviewable decisions.

The Government response to the Committee’s report supported in principle a practice of addressing any of a bill’s trespasses on personal rights and liberties that the Committee refers to Parliament for further consideration.

In the case of urgent bills, where the Committee may not have the opportunity to refer a bill’s trespasses on personal rights and liberties to the Parliament for further consideration, the Government supported in principle a practice of making a bill’s key impacts on personal rights and liberties clear during the second reading speech or debate on the bill.

Agencies responsible for assisting a Minister or Government member with carriage of a bill in Parliament should support this practice by ensuring that a bill’s impacts on personal rights and liberties are, where necessary, identified and the rationale for them explained in the speeches, debate points and other material prepared by the agency. In preparing this material, agencies should refer to any list of personal rights and liberties that the Committee may publish from time to time to assist with the rights scrutiny process.

Michael Coutts-Trotter

Secretary