Key developments
- Consultation on highly contentious bills
- Establishing a Personal Injury Commission
- Proposed Motor Accident Guidelines – Authorised Health Practitioners
- Building and Development Certifiers Regulation 2019
- Design and Building Practitioners Bill 2019
- Priorities for federal discrimination law reform
- Data Sharing and Release Legislative Reforms
- Industrial relations consultation
- Modern slavery
- Review into the Australian Citizenship Amendment (Citizenship Cessation) Bill 2019
Additional content – only available on LSJ Online
- Contract for the sale and purchase of land 2019 edition
- Australia’s 2020 Cyber Security Strategy
Consultation on highly contentious bills
The Public Law Committee, with input from the Criminal Law Committee, contributed to the NSW Legislative Council Procedure Committee consultation on highly contentious bills. Our submission focused on the first term of reference which requires the Committee to inquire into and report on whether ‘prior to its introduction in the Legislative Council, all highly contentious government legislation – defined as a bill likely to substantially alter economic, employment, social, legal or environmental conditions in New South Wales and to provoke widespread public interest in the proposed changes – [should] be subject to a comprehensive and consultative Green and White Paper process.’ We recommended that: a prescribed consultation process be followed before a bill is introduced to Parliament; the name and definition of a ‘highly contentious’ bill be revised; all bills be subjected to the prescribed consultation process unless considered clearly non-contentious; and that adequate timeframes for public comment and resources for the prescribed consultation process be available.
