David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party, Assistant Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

Today I am pleased to introduce one of the supporting bills—the Industrial Chemicals Charges (General) Bill 2017—to the government's package of legislation to reform industrial chemicals regulation in Australia. The new scheme will be known as the Australian Industrial Chemicals Introduction Scheme (AICIS).

The Industrial Chemicals Charges (General) Bill 2017 is one of three charges bills being introduced as part of the government's package of legislation; and will replace the current Industrial Chemicals (Registration Charge-General) Act 1997. The other two bills are the Industrial Chemicals Charges (Excise) Bill 2017 and the Industrial Chemicals Charges (Customs) Bill 2017.

This bill will facilitate a cost recovered scheme, by introducing a charge on a registered person each year they wish to introduce a chemical in accordance with the Industrial Chemicals Bill 2017. The legislation requires that the Minister for Health be satisfied that the amount charged will not be more than the likely costs of AICIS regulatory activities. This will provide introducers of chemicals with confidence that the government will not over-recover the costs of managing these regulatory activities.

The bill does not itself set the amount of the charges. The charges and who is liable and exempt from paying the charges will be set in the regulations. Specifying such matters in regulations, as opposed to the act itself, provides the department with sufficient flexibility to ensure that these matters are appropriate in all circumstances.

The Department of Health will be consulting extensively on the mechanism for calculating this charge to ensure cost recovery arrangements for activities provided in relation to registering chemicals are appropriately supported. I encourage all stakeholders to respond to this consultation process.

Debate adjourned.