Flurry of bills set to greet state’s upper house politicians

Matt Maloney | Examiner | 23 November 2021  

Some independent upper house members have criticised the government’s handling of its legislative agenda with one saying the Legislative Council has had not experienced such an end-of-year rush of bills in years.

The Legislative Council had seven bills on its notice paper on Monday when it was convened for a special sitting in order to debate the government’s gaming legislation.

The House of Assembly will resume sitting on Tuesday and the government intends to pass more legislation to send to the upper house.

Murchison independent MLC Ruth Forrest said the Legislative Council worked at its best when there were a regular stream of bills to the upper house

“We have not seen such an indecent rush of legislation heading toward the last sitting week for many years,” she said.

“We lost several sitting weeks with the early election that were not replaced and here we are in the last two sitting weeks with several pieces of controversial and contested legislation that require significant scrutiny.”

Ms Forrest said she believed the government could manage the flow of legislation better.

“In my view, they will need to prioritise the bills they want dealt with this week as there are only so many hours in the day and fatigue can lead to poor decision-making,” she said.

Mersey independent MLC Mike Gaffney said an upper house sitting week was postponed some months ago as there was not enough legislation to warrant a sitting.

“In contrast, there are now so many pieces of significant legislation on the table that an extra sitting day was scheduled for [Monday], as well as earlier start times and late finishes,” he said.

“As the government has the numbers to get any legislation passed downstairs it really is up to the Legislative Council to review and scrutinise all bills on behalf of the Tasmanian community.

“The Legislative Council should not feel pressure to pass legislation based on a sitting schedule.”

Nelson independent MLC Meg Webb said cramming a glut of legislation through Parliament in the final weeks of the year disrespected good parliamentary process.

“This is not the way to deliver good, accountable legislation, let alone effective, well-supported reforms,” she said.

“Whether it is because the government has mismanaged its legislative agenda in 2021 through the delays cause by an unnecessarily early election or that this is a tactic to put pressure on the upper house to rush bills through without appropriate scrutiny, the government is clearly not meeting the best interests of the community.”

See more of Meg’s recent media.