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) (12:55): Well, the discretion obviously exists for the president of the commission, who I would argue is probably in the best position to make a judgement on that.

The point, at the moment, is that the mandatory notification applies to anyone who might be raised in a complaint but is not a respondent to the complaint and that the commission's advice to us, or to government, is that this also causes distress and has resulted in some people who've been named adversely but are not respondents—it's had an impact on them. There's also the fact that they will go and get advice and things like that, as individuals will do from time to time, but it's not really necessary, because they're not a respondent to the matter.

This removes the mandatory requirement; the discretion remains, and I think all of the processes that have been put in place over the years, including in 2017, mean that procedural fairness is followed. It's just removing that mandatory requirement to notify anyone who might be mentioned in a complaint. You can imagine getting a complaint about someone in a workplace who is complaining about their employer but may name some other individuals in that case who are not formally respondents to that but are then having to be contacted by the Human Rights Commission, saying: 'Look, you've been named in this.

You're not the respondent. We're dealing with that. But you have been named in this complaint'—essentially, to what end?

The discretion exists for the president to do it in the circumstances that they allowed, but our suggestion is that the mandatory requirement to ring anybody who's been named in a complaint be removed.