Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Centenary of ANZAC) Share this | Hansard source

I seek to give the Labor Party's response to Senator Lambie's amendment 8101, known as the Henry VIII motion. Unfortunately, Labor will not be supporting this amendment, as the Henry VIII clause is intended only as a fail-safe in the unlikely event that something else has been overlooked in the drafting of the bill which would leave veterans worse off. Henry VIII clauses enable the government to make regulations with the power to modify the act, which are then introduced to parliament as a disallowable instrument. In the DRCA, a condition has been added to the Henry VIII clause that requires any regulations made under this provision to act in a purely beneficial way for the veteran to deal with any anomalies that may arise where there is a retrospective application of the DRCA. This condition states:

Before the Governor-General makes regulations under subsection 1:

a. the Minister must be satisfied that it is necessary or desirable to make the regulations to ensure that no person (except the Commonwealth) is disadvantaged by the enactment of this Act;

As such, it is clear that, in the event of this clause being utilised, it can only be when someone has been made worse off by the creation of the DRCA and any changes will benefit only an individual claimant and not the government. This is a very important condition, and it is the reason the Labor Party is in a position to support the inclusion of this clause.

It's worth remembering that in the event that the clause is utilised there would be an individual veteran who has been made worse off for the creation of this bill and has had this acknowledgement by the department and regulations drafted, approved and tabled. To deny or delay them the provision of receiving this benefit is unfair, particularly given that, in these circumstances, if the DRCA had not been created there would have been no delay and they would have received this assistance immediately. We call on the department to, in the event that this clause is utilised, exhaust all avenues to ensure that anyone else who would benefit from the changes to the regulations is afforded the same benefit. The government has agreed to this at Labor's request and has committed to ensuring that everything possibly will be done by the department to locate and contact any person who would be affected by the DRCA Henry VIII clause. Labor supports the inclusion of this clause without the requirement to consult prior to making the regulations, for one reason only, and that is to ensure that that there is no delay in correcting the issue which has come about due to the creation of the bill and its impact on the veteran.