Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill 2026

Senator CASH (Western Australia—Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) (19:32): The coalition, while supporting the Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill 2026, strongly opposes the changes to the Australian Human Rights Commission Act which are part of the Albanese government's regulatory reform bill. As has been stated, we'll be moving an amendment to remove this section entirely because it seriously undermines procedural fairness for a person who has had a complaint made about their actions to the Human Rights Commission.

Sadly for Australians, the Australian Human Rights Commission under the Albanese government has serious problems. The President of the Human Rights Commission appointed by the Albanese government believes that an individual can be a biological man and also a woman at the same time. We have a Sex Discrimination Commissioner, again appointed by the Albanese government, who worries that transgender women—that is, biological males—can face discrimination for potential pregnancy in their workplace, and we have a Race Discrimination Commissioner appointed by, again, the Albanese government who wants to change Australia Day from 26 January and bemoans the 'undercurrent of nationalism' on our national day.

He describes celebrating Australia Day as 'you've got to kiss the flag or go away'. That is the Human Rights Commission under the Albanese government. It is no longer about combating genuine human rights abuses from around the world.

It has become a body that is simply promoting the Albanese government's agenda of a woke, divided Australia. This is the vision that the Australian people rejected when they said no to Anthony Albanese's divisive Voice. The regulatory reform bill has a small part hidden away, as always, which removes the duty of the Human Rights Commission to inform someone if they have had adverse allegations made against them.

These provisions are described innocuously enough as 'removing adverse allegation notifications'. But behind this bureaucratic description is a very simple question of fairness. If a person is accused in a formal complaint before the Australian Human Rights Commission of personally engaging in unlawful discrimination, should that person ordinarily be told that the allegation has been made?

I believe the answer is yes. The government's bill says that in some circumstances the answer should be no. That is a mistake.

The bill before us repeals paragraph 46PF(7)(c) of the Australian Human Rights Commission Act. It then removes the related provisions governing the notification of a person who is not formally named as a respondent but who is nevertheless the subject of an adverse allegation in a complaint. This is not a technical amendment.

It removes a deliberate procedural safeguard enacted by this parliament. In 2017 the parliament considered significant reforms to the complaints handling procedures of the Australian Human Rights Commission. Those reforms followed intense public concern about a number of cases, including the proceedings involving students at the Queensland University of Technology.

The explanatory memorandum for the 2017 legislation expressly referred to the QUT case. It recorded concerns that people involved in Human Rights Commission complaints were not always promptly notified that complaints had been made against them. The circumstances of the QUT matter should give this Senate pause before it passes this legislation.

The dispute arose from comments made by a number of university students online following an incident concerning access to an Indigenous computer laboratory. A complaint was made against the students under section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, but the students themselves were not immediately brought into the process. A complaint was initially made to the Human Rights Commission in June 2014.

The commission's own public chronology records and the students were only notified of the complaint on 28 July 2015, shortly before a conciliation conference on 3 August 2015—13 months after the complaint was made. Those affected were finally notified by the Australian Human Rights Commission. That is clearly unacceptable.

That is the very reason this safeguard was first put in the act. If someone has an adverse allegation made against them, they have a right to know. The QUT case was eventually dismissed by the Federal Court, because the court believed it had no reasonable prospect of success.

But this case brought an important safeguard to the Human Rights Act—a safeguard that Mr Albanese, as Prime Minister of this country, now wants to abandon: procedural fairness. The Albanese government wants to throw procedural fairness in Australia out the door. The 2017 reforms dealt with the notification of formal respondents and the notification of other people who were personally the subject of adverse allegations.

The QUT controversy was a central part of the broader background to those reforms. The government's explanatory memorandum said that the case and evidence before the parliamentary inquiry had highlighted community concern around timely notification. But the justification given specifically for the adverse allegation safeguard went even further.

The explanatory memorandum acknowledged that someone who is the subject of an adverse allegation but who is technically not a respondent cannot necessarily be sued simply because of that status. Then it made an important observation. It said that such a person may nevertheless suffer reputational harm.

And it said in substance that those people are entitled to know that allegations have been made against them and should have the opportunity if they choose to challenge those allegations. That was the parliament's rationale, and it was a sound one, because the difference between a respondent and a person who is the subject of an adverse allegation may matter enormously to lawyers.

It may matter to the drafting of pleadings. It may matter to jurisdiction. But it does not necessarily matter very much to the human being whose conduct is being accused.

Imagine a complaint against a company. The company is the formal respondent, but the complainant says that a named manager engaged in conduct said to breach Commonwealth discrimination law. That manager may not be the formal respondent, but the allegation is about them.

It concerns their conduct, it personally affects their reputation, it may affect their employment and it may affect their professional relationships. And, depending on what follows, it may affect them for years. Under the existing law, parliament has said that, if the commission proceeds to inquire into that complaint, a person who is the subject of an adverse allegation is ordinarily to be notified, as they should be.

That is procedural fairness. What the government is going to do with this legislation is remove that requirement of procedural fairness. Why?

Well, the principal argument advanced is one of efficiency—efficiency over procedural fairness in Australia. The government says that this is part of a broader regulatory reform program designed 'to simplify the administrative processes'. The commission has estimated that administering adverse-allegation notifications consumes around 450 hours each year and includes identifying relevant people, considering redactions, obtaining contact details and preparing correspondence.

Since when did 450 staff hours per year become too high a price for procedural fairness, for a human rights commission with well over 100 staff? Across government, we impose notification obligations all the time. We require notice before adverse decisions.

We require opportunities to respond. We require procedural steps that take public servants time—God forbid! We do so because, while efficient government is important, fair government—procedural fairness—is even more important.

A person can suffer serious consequences from an allegation, even if they are not formally sued. That is exactly what the 2017 explanatory memorandum recognised when it referred to reputational harm. And we should remember what kinds of allegations we were discussing.

The existing definition is not triggered because someone has been mentioned casually in correspondence; it concerns an allegation that a person has engaged in conduct amounting to unlawful discrimination. If our law rightly treats those allegations seriously when protecting complainants, then our procedures should also treat them seriously when determining how the accused person is dealt with.

Early notification can actually improve the quality of the commission's work. Someone who knows that an allegation has been made can preserve documents. They can retrieve emails.

They can identify witnesses. They can explain a conversation whilst memories are fresh. They can point out a factual error.

They can provide context that an organisational respondent may not possess. They can, in some cases, acknowledge what occurred and help resolve a dispute. And, sometimes, their response may actually demonstrate that the allegation is mistaken.

All of those possibilities contribute to better fact finding and better conciliation. The Australian Human Rights Commission should actually set a high standard for procedural fairness. It should not be enough to say, 'You were technically the respondent, so we did not have to tell you that this serious allegation was being considered.' That is not the standard that Australians expect from government.

There is, of course, an important qualification to the current law. There will be cases involving sexual harassment, domestic violence, vulnerable complainants or other circumstances in which immediate notification could create genuine risks. The former coalition government recognised this in 2017 and created an exemption where notification would prejudice a person's safety.

The explanatory memorandum specifically contemplated that that might arise, for example, in sexual harassment matters. So we already have a law that recognises exceptional circumstances. So what is the Albanese government doing with the so-called innocuous part of this bill?

The Albanese government has taken a scalpel to a problem and reached for an axe. It means removing a person's statutory right to be told that they have been accused of unlawful discrimination in a complaint being considered by the Human Rights Commission. That deserves more scrutiny than the language of regulatory efficiency suggests.

A fair process protects complainants as well as respondents and third parties, because decisions and settlements reached through processes perceived as legitimate are more durable and command greater respect. The history of the QUT matter should have taught parliament that notification is not an administrative nicety; it is one of the foundations of procedural fairness, and that foundation will be thrown out when this bill passes the Senate.

The 2017 parliament understood the potential reputational harm faced by a person who is the subject of serious allegation, even though they are not formally a respondent. It concluded that those people should know allegations have been made and should have an opportunity to challenge them. The principle remains correct today, and the coalition will be moving an amendment to take this out of the bill.

I would ask—if you haven't read the bill, read it. Read this part. If you vote for it, you will be voting to remove procedural fairness from a person who has been named in a discrimination complaint.

It's happened before. It had disastrous consequences. We legislated to rectify that to ensure that procedural fairness was afforded to people who are named in complaints.

When a person's reputation is on the line, 450 hours of bureaucratic staff time across an entire year is, quite frankly, not too much for the Commonwealth to spend ensuring that people know what they have been accused of. As I've said, the coalition will move an amendment to ensure that this does not go through the Senate. We stand for procedural fairness.

Shame on the Albanese government for ripping the guts out of procedural fairness in the Australian Human Rights Commission Act with the bill that they seek to put through the Australian Senate.