Additional Comments - Australian Greens

The Australian Greens support a drone registration levy, to fund and support appropriate regulation of a rapidly expanding and changing sector. However the reliance of delegated legislation for this framework reflects a concerning pattern. As the main Committee report notes, the Scrutiny of Bills Committee has highlighted questions around “the appropriateness of leaving virtually all of the details of the operation of the proposed unmanned aircraft levy scheme to delegated legislation.”
The Senate Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation is currently undertaking an inquiry into the Exemption of delegated legislation from parliamentary oversight. In a submission to that inquiry, the Centre for Public Integrity stated that: 
Accountability measures that ensure policy decisions made via delegated legislation are in the public interest and follow proper process are limited. These decisions are not given detailed deliberation in Parliament and are not transparent to public scrutiny.
… the increasing use of delegated legislation puts individual power in the hands of Ministers who do not face independent accountability outside of Parliamentary scrutiny.
We are concerned that the increasing exemption of delegated legislation from disallowance threatens democratic decision making and the constitutional role of Parliament.1
We welcome the Government’s decision to use disallowable instruments for this scheme, rather than exempting them from disallowance. However the Australian Greens share the concerns of the Centre for Public Integrity at the expanding use of delegated legislation. 
Senator Janet Rice
Participating Member
  • 1
    The Centre for Public Integrity, Submission 13, pp. 2.

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