Supplementary Explanatory Memorandum
(Circulated by authority of the Minister for Finance, Senator the Hon Katy Gallagher)NOTES ON AMENDMENTS
Amendment 1 Clause 2, page 2 (at the end of the table)
6. Clause 19 of the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service Bill 2023 (the PWSS Bill) confers on the PWSS a review function. As explained in the explanatory memorandum to the PWSS Bill:
This is intended to be an interim function. It is envisaged that the PWSS would continue to carry out this function until the proposed establishment of the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission (in response to recommendation 22 of the Set the Standard Report).
7. Amendments 1 and 2 would effectively repeal the PWSS's review function two years after the commencement of the PWSS. The amendments effectively operate as a sunset provision, to ensure that the review function is only conferred on the PWSS as an interim function, pending the establishment of the proposed Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission (IPSC).
8. This amendment would insert, into the commencement table in clause 2 of the Bill, a new row that would provide that Schedule 3, added by amendment 2, would commence the day after the end of the period of two years beginning on the day the PWSS Bill, if enacted, commences. The provisions in Schedule 3 would not, however, commence at all if the PWSS Bill did not commence.
Amendment 2 Page 9 (after line 22), at the end of the Bill
9. Amendment (2) would add a new Schedule 3 to the Bill.
10. Items 1, 2 and 3 of Schedule 3 are complementary to item 4 and would make minor amendments to clauses 4, 11 and 13 of the PWSS Bill to omit references to the PWSS's review function once it no longer has that function.
11. Item 4 of Schedule 3 would remove the review function of the PWSS by repealing clause 19 of the PWSS Bill.
12. Item 5 of Schedule 3 is complementary to item 4 and would make a minor amendment to subclause 61(6) of the PWSS Bill to insert, after the words "section 19", the words "(as in force immediately before the repeal of that section by Schedule 3 to the Parliamentary Workplace Support Service (Consequential Amendments and Transitional Provisions) Act 2023)".
13. Subclause 61(6) provides that before disclosing information obtained in the course of performing its review function to another Commonwealth entity or to an individual who holds a relevant office or appointment, the PWSS must have regard to whether the disclosure would be likely to result in harm to an individual to whom the information relates. Item 5 would clarify that the PWSS performed a review function until the repeal of that function.