Gai Brodtmann (Canberra, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Defence) Share this | Hansard source

Labor supports the proposed amendments set out in the Defence Legislation Amendment (Instrument Making) Bill 2017. The bill amends both the Defence Act 1903 and the Regulatory Powers (Standard Provisions) Act 2014 in relation to inquiries, defence aviation areas and public areas. The amendments do not make significant changes to Defence's current operations. They are intended to enhance them and to update the regulations and make them more flexible for our 21st century.

The changes to the two acts will enable instruments created under these provisions to be remade, taking into account the updates that we talk about here today. First up, there are the sunsetting provisions. All legislative instruments are subject to the sunsetting provisions in the Legislative Instruments Act. Under those provisions, instruments that are not exempted will be automatically repealed after about 10 years unless action is taken to preserve them. In coming years, thousands of legislative instruments are due to sunset, and the amendments discussed in this bill will affect three legislative instruments that will sunset in April 2018 unless they're remade. These instruments are the Defence (Inquiry) Regulations 1985, the Defence (Areas Control) Regulations 1989 and the Defence (Public Areas) By-Laws 1987. These amendments are intended to ensure the legislative instruments remain fit for purpose, necessary, relevant and flexible. As you can see, those two regulations and that set of by-laws are around 30 years old now, so this ensures that Defence can stay up to date with the latest developments and ensure that its regulations and by-laws reflect those.

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