Hansard debates

Mrs McARTHUR (Western Victoria) (12:20): I move:

That the Council take note of the report.

After a meeting in which it considered the expert advice of Associate Professor Jeremy Gans, the Scrutiny of Acts and Regulations Committee’s legal consultant wrote to the Attorney-General on 13 December requesting clarification on the Change or Suppression (Conversion) Practices Prohibition Bill 2020 and its interaction with, and potential infringement of, the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities and other legislation; that was 52 days ago, more than seven weeks ago now. The bill has already passed the Assembly. It is to be discussed in this house this week, yet there is still no response from the Attorney-General. Ministers responding to letters from SARC is a key part of the scrutiny process. The committee writes only to raise serious issues. It is not a political football but an essential tool in improving the quality of Victorian legislation. The SARC process was introduced with this aim, but the contempt of ministers is undermining it. The questions raised should be answered and debated in this house before any new law is passed. This matters for any bill but all the more for a subject as controversial and potentially restrictive of freedom of expression as this bill.

The Treasurer has not responded to a letter on the North East Link Bill 2020 from March last year. The Premier has not responded to SARC’s questions on the omnibus bill in June. There are another five letters unanswered from last year’s committee work. It is a clear indication that ministers consider SARC an optional extra in their work, just as they seem to take the Premier’s lead and consider Parliament an optional extra or, worse still, an inconvenience best bypassed. I just make note, as a member of the SARC committee, that it is extremely disturbing that on these important matters these ministers do not answer the questions that are rightly put by the committee.