What it does
The Legislation Review Act 1987 constitutes and empowers a joint parliamentary committee to perform systematic, technical scrutiny of both primary and subordinate legislation in New South Wales. Its core operative provisions are contained in Part 3.
Section 8A(1) confers functions with respect to Bills. The Committee must consider every Bill introduced into Parliament and report to both Houses on whether the Bill, by express words or otherwise: (i) trespasses unduly on personal rights and liberties; (ii) makes rights, liberties or obligations unduly dependent upon insufficiently defined administrative powers; (iii) makes rights, liberties or obligations unduly dependent upon non-reviewable decisions; (iv) inappropriately delegates legislative powers; or (v) insufficiently subjects the exercise of legislative power to parliamentary scrutiny (s 8A(1)(b)). Importantly, s 8A(2) provides that a House may pass a Bill regardless of whether the Committee has reported, and the Committee is not prevented from reporting after passage or even after the Bill has become an Act.
Section 9 governs the Committee’s functions with respect to regulations. It must examine all regulations while they remain subject to disallowance (s 9(1)(a)) and decide whether the special attention of Parliament should be drawn to them on any ground, including the eight enumerated grounds in s 9(1)(b)(i)–(viii). Those grounds range from trespass on personal rights and liberties, adverse impact on the business community, inconsistency with the general objects or spirit of the enabling Act, duplication or conflict with other laws, through to non-compliance with the consultation, regulatory-impact, and explanatory-material requirements of ss 4, 5 and 6 and Schedules 1 and 2 of the Subordinate Legislation Act 1989. The Committee may report that a regulation or part of a regulation ought to be disallowed and must give its reasons (s 9(1)(c)).