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Thursday, 10 May 2012
Page: 3177

Senator IAN MACDONALD (Queensland) (17:59): I present the fifth report of the Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Bills and also the Scrutiny of Bills Alert Digest No. 5 of 2012.

Ordered that the report be printed.

Senator IAN MACDONALD: I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

The Alert Digest and the report are presented regularly to this chamber. I will say a couple of words about the work of the committee. I am a newly appointed chair of this committee. I used to be on the committee, many years ago, when I first came into this parliament. I thought then—and this thought has been reinforced since I have returned to the committee—what a fabulous job this committee does. It goes through all of the legislation that is presented to parliament and, in an almost universally non-partisan way, determines what parts of that legislation might unduly trespass on personal rights and liberties or might inappropriately delegate legislative power or insufficiently subject the exercise of legislative power to parliamentary scrutiny.

I urge senators to pay attention to these reports and the digests as they come in because they highlight, they do not make judgements on whether these are good or bad—that is a matter for policy debate in the chamber—but they do alert people to infringements on what we would broadly term human rights. So much comes through in legislation that does attract the attention of the committee. Very often when the committee draws attention to provisions the government or the people submitting the bills either amend them to take into account the committee's concern or alternatively explain why these particular provisions are there. It is a tremendously useful tool for senators and those interested in getting good legislation through this parliament. I commend the report and the digest to the Senate for its consideration.

Question agreed to.