Tuesday, 30 May 2023

Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee

Report on the Statute Law Amendment Bill 2022

Dylan WIGHT (Tarneit) (11:41): It gives me great pleasure to rise and contribute to this debate and speak on the Report on the Statute Law Amendment Bill 2022, a report compiled by the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee (SARC), which indeed I have the absolute pleasure to be able to serve on in this Parliament. Statute law amendment bills are not necessarily the most enthralling things that we get to speak on and get to do in this place, but as the previous speaker noted, they are something that is incredibly important for making sure that legislation in this state continues to operate in the way that it should.

Firstly, I would like to just give a bit of a shout-out to the committee members. The chair, the member for Greenvale Iwan Walters, does an absolutely amazing job on SARC and, for a new member to this place, carries himself as well as I have ever seen any new member do. I would also like to acknowledge the deputy chair David Davis from the other place, who most certainly holds our government members on this committee to account in an incredibly robust fashion, I may say, which is an incredibly important function of Victoria’s fantastic democracy.

I had the pleasure of speaking on this particular bill in this place, and this report has a number of key recommendations. In the other place, Jaclyn Symes, the Attorney-General, moved that the Statute Law Amendment Bill 2022 be referred to SARC for an inquiry. As I said, this particular piece of legislation deals with minor amendments to several different bills, just to make sure that they continue to operate in the way that they should in Victoria’s current environment. This report makes seven different recommendations, and without going through all of them in detail one by one, because I just do not have enough time to do so, essentially each recommendation includes a particular amendment to each bill. For instance, we have got the Aboriginal Heritage Act 2006 –

Roma Britnell: On a point of order, Acting Speaker, could we just have clarification on what is being discussed? Is this the committee report?

The ACTING SPEAKER (Paul Hamer): Yes, it is the committee report on the Statute Law Amendment Bill, I believe.

Dylan WIGHT: Essentially the report has seven recommendations, which include a number of amendments to particular acts. And for those opposite: if you would like to read it, go ahead.