Regulatory Reform Omnibus Bill 2026

Senator GALLAGHER (Australian Capital Territory—Minister for Finance, Minister for the Public Service, Minister for Women, Minister for Government Services and Manager of Government Business in the Senate) (12:52): This has come forward from the Human Rights Commission. Essentially, the advice that I have is that the current notification requirement adds administrative delay and burden to the complaints management process, takes resources away from supporting the complainant through the process and, in some cases, makes the complaints harder and more stressful for complainants.

On the issue of procedural fairness, this still requires, essentially, for the complainant and the respondent to be notified. All respondents have to be notified by the commission when a complaint is received against them. The president of the commission will retain the discretion to notify relevant individuals where appropriate.

This will allow the commission to take a targeted, case-by-case approach when determining whether notifying a nonrespondent will properly support the resolution of the complaint. There are a number of examples that have been given where the commission has, in their advice to government around this particular mandatory notification, which I think came in in 2017—there were some amendments moved to the commission's complaints framework, to enhance procedural fairness, that had been recommended by the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights.

This led to a mandatory notification requirement for respondents. The adverse-allegation requirement was introduced at the same time but was not actually recommended by the committee and went beyond what the committee had recommended. I can go through some of the examples that have been given of its making the process harder for complainants and of the delays to the resolution of the complaints that the commission has argued have been the result of this mandatory requirement for adverse-allegation notifications.