Bills Digest No. 5 2003-04
Statistics
Legislation Amendment Bill 2003
WARNING:
This Digest was prepared for debate. It reflects the legislation as
introduced and does not canvass subsequent amendments. This Digest
does not have any official legal status. Other sources should be
consulted to determine the subsequent official status of the
Bill.
CONTENTS
Passage History
Purpose
Background
Main Provisions
Endnotes
Contact Officer & Copyright Details
Passage History
Statistics Legislation
Amendment Bill
Date
Introduced: 26 June
2003
House:
House of Representatives
Portfolio:
Treasury
Commencement:
Royal Assent
To make
technical amendments to the Australian Bureau of Statistics Act
1975, the Census and Statistics Act 1975 and the
Statistics Regulations to ensure that:
- secrecy provisions apply to people who retired or resigned from
the Australian Bureau of Statistics ('ABS') prior
to 1999, and
- the ABS can second people from other organisations and engage
supplementary staff for irregular collection activities such as the
population census.
The Bill corrects a number of technical
deficiencies in statistics legislation which arose as an unintended
consequence of previous amendments to the Australian Bureau of
Statistics Act 1975 ('ABS Act').
Item 1 replaces
subsection 16(2) of the ABS Act
with a new provision designed to ensure the ability of the ABS to
engage staff for supplementary tasks. According to the Explanatory
Memorandum, Item 1 rectifies the
unintended consequence of an amendment to section 16 of the
ABS Act by the Statute Law (Miscellaneous Provisions)
Act 1987. This placed in doubt the power of the ABS
to engage staff under the Statistics Regulations.
Item 3 inserts a new
section 16A in the ABS Act to allow the
ABS to second employees from other organisations, including
agencies and authorities of Commonwealth, State and Territory
governments, foreign governments including ABS counterpart agencies
in other countries and international organisations such as the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.
Item 5 extends the definition
of an ABS 'officer' in section 3 of the
Census and Statistics Act ('CS
Act') to ensure that people seconded under new section 16A
of the ABS Act can work with information collected under the CS Act
and are subject to the stringent secrecy provisions of that
Act.
Item 6 adds new
subsection 16(2) to the CS Act preventing
people seconded to the ABS from being appointed as 'authorised
officers' with 'powers of compulsion' under the CS Act including
the ability to request that forms be
filled up or questions answered, or the authority to enter
prescribed classes of premises.
Item 7 adds new
subsection 17(1A) to the CS Act to
prevent powers of compulsion under the CS Act being delegated to
people seconded to the ABS.
Item 8 inserts new
section 19B in the CS Act to ensure that
former officers of the ABS who retired or resigned prior to 1999
are still subject to the secrecy provisions in the Act. As the
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance and
Administration, Peter Slipper MP, noted in the Second Reading
Speech:
Deficiencies arising from amendments [to the ABS
Act] in 1987 and 1999 have placed in doubt whether all current and
former ABS staff are covered by the secrecy provisions of the
Census and Statistics Act 1905.(1)
As the Parliamentary Secretary noted,
'fundamental to the trust of the community in the ABS is the
knowledge that the ABS will protect their data and keep it
confidential.'(2)
Item 9 amends
subregulation 3(1) of the Statistics
Regulations to allow ABS staff to be employed along with
other supplementary staff for occasional intensive tasks such as
the population census and other collections.
To ensure the legality of the use by ABS of
supplementary staff prior to commencement of this Bill,
Item 11 validates all previous purported
engagements of such staff.
1.
Second Reading Speech, House Hansard, 26 June 2003, p.
16464.
2.
ibid.
Peter Prince
23 July 2003
Bills Digest Service
Information and Research Services
This paper has been prepared for general distribution to
Senators and Members of the Australian Parliament. While great care
is taken to ensure that the paper is accurate and balanced, the
paper is written using information publicly available at the time
of production. The views expressed are those of the author and
should not be attributed to the Information and Research Services
(IRS). Advice on legislation or legal policy issues contained in
this paper is provided for use in parliamentary debate and for
related parliamentary purposes. This paper is not professional
legal opinion. Readers are reminded that the paper is not an
official parliamentary or Australian government document.
IRS staff are available to discuss the paper's
contents with Senators and Members and their staff but not with
members of the public.
ISSN 1328-8091
© Commonwealth of Australia 2003
Except to the extent of the uses permitted under the
Copyright Act 1968, no part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including
information storage and retrieval systems, without the prior
written consent of the Parliamentary Library, other than by Members
of the Australian Parliament in the course of their official
duties.
Published by the Department of the Parliamentary Library,
2003.
Back to top