COMMITTEES
Senator O'NEILL (New South Wales) (16:59): I rise to speak to the tabling of the Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation Committee's Delegated legislation monitor: monitor9 of 2026, which reports on the committee's consideration of 159 legislative instruments registered between 17 June and 1 July 2026. In this monitor, the committee has commented on one new instrument and concluded its examination of three instruments.
The new instrument the committee has commented on is the Water Amendment (Murray-Darling Basin Agreement) Regulations 2026. This instrument amends the Murray-Darling Basin Agreement at schedule 1 to the Water Act 2007. The committee ordinarily has concerns with legislative instruments that amend primary legislation.
However, in this instance, given that the amendments are limited to changes to an intergovernmental agreement that can only be made by a resolution of the Commonwealth and participating states and territories, the committee has resolved to draw the Senate's attention to this matter under order 23(4) and is not seeking advice from the minister. The first instrument the committee has concluded on is the Air Navigation Regulations 2026.
The committee welcomes the minister's undertaking to repeal sections 28 and 29 of the instrument prior to the adoption of any automated decision-making process and replace them with provisions that limit the automation of timetabling decisions to decisions based on objective criteria. The committee also welcomes the minister's undertaking to include further information in the instrument's explanatory statement.
The committee considers these undertakings to be important and positive steps in ensuring that the instrument aligns with the committee's scrutiny and expectations. As such, the committee has resolved to conclude its examination of this instrument and withdraw its protective disallowance notice. Finally, the committee has also concluded its consideration of the Regional Investment Corporation (Drought Hardship Loans) Rules 2026 and the Regional Investment Corporation (Marine Recovery Loans) Rules 2026.
These instruments set up loan programs to provide finance to certain businesses affected by drought or harmful marine events. After several rounds of correspondence, the minister has undertaken to amend the explanatory statements to the instruments to include further detail regarding the meaning of certain terms, access to guidance documents provided by the Regional Investment Corporation and the consultation undertaken on the instruments.
The minister's also advised, with reference to the Macquarie Dictionary Online, that other key terms in the instruments are intentionally not defined and take their ordinary meaning in order to provide appropriate flexibility for the Regional Investment Corporation in exercising its decision-making powers. The minister further stated that guidance documents prepared by the Regional Investment Corporation are expected to provide examples of evidence that may satisfy key criteria.
While this information provides some additional clarity, the committee remains concerned that the broad drafting of these provisions may lead to uncertainty regarding the interpretation of key eligibility criteria. The committee's concerns are heightened in this instance as the terms are included in the context of broad discretionary powers provided to the Regional Investment Corporation.
The committee also remains concerned that this approach may limit parliamentary oversight as it affords such a degree of flexibility that, in effect, it delegates the interpretation and operation of important provisions to the Regional Investment Corporation. In this regard, the committee notes that the minister's advice about the meaning of some key terms appears to differ from the guidance documents prepared by the Regional Investment Corporation.
The minister's also advised that independent review of the merits of a decision to grant a particular applicant a loan is not appropriate as it will impact the remaining funds for all other applicants because available funding is limited to the amount appropriated to the Regional Investment Corporation. While noting this advice, the minister's response appears to refer to impacts of independent merits review on allocations to future applications.
It's unclear to the committee why the exclusion is justified under the Administrative Review Council's guide, which provides that independent merits review may only be appropriately excluded for decisions allocating a finite resource between competing applicants where a review of such decisions creates the potential for an existing allocation to another party to be affected.
Despite these concerns, given the minister's undertaking to include a range of additional information in the explanatory statements to each instrument, the committee has resolved to conclude its examination of these instruments. The committee has also resolved to withdraw its protective disallowance notices. With these comments, I commend the committee's Delegated legislation monitor: monitor 9 of 2026 to the Senate.