Commission of Inquiry (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill 2026
[5.10 p.m.]
Ms BURNET (Clark) - Thank you, honourable Speaker. I rise to speak to the Commission of Inquiry (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill of 2026 and would like to thank the Attorney‑General for bringing this bill on. I'd like to also thank the back-and-forth discussion in which the Attorney‑General has been very generous with his time, as have his staff and the staff at the Attorney‑General's office.
I'd also like to thank other members for their contributions. Ms Haddad who spoke earlier, Ms Rosol, Ms Ogilvie and Mrs Greene, because I think it's very important. What I've heard over the course of considering this bill - heard from all of these discussions, and of course I acknowledge the work already done by members of this Chamber and members who have been involved in the commission, members of the public and professionals who have been involved in the commission of inquiry.
It's the duty of this parliament as the elected representatives of the people to carefully scrutinise every piece of legislation that comes before it, and never more so than when a bill seeks to limit or curtail the rights and freedoms of those we serve. Any proposal that would restrict the right must not be waived through on the strength of good intentions alone. It falls to this House to ask hard questions. Is the limitation justified by pressing and substantial objective? Is it proportionate, going no further than necessary? Could that aim be achieved by a less restrictive means? These aren't procedural formalities. They are the safeguards that distinguish a parliament that governs with the consent and trust of the people from one that governs by mere assertion of power. It is in that spirit that I rise to address this bill.
Before raising my specific concerns, I too acknowledge the lived experience and courage of those whose stories informed the findings and recommendations of the commission of inquiry. The inquiry identified profound failures in Tasmania's institutions and the need for stronger mechanisms to protect children and young people. I also acknowledge the commitment of this government and the Attorney‑General specifically to implement these. recommendations. I recognise this bill implements specific recommendations of the commission of inquiry, recommendations whose overarching purpose is to improve child safety. I support the amendments in this bill specifically designed to achieve that purpose. What I do not support are those amendments that seek to erode the privacy or rights of individuals without the necessary justification of improving child safety.
Every bill effects at least some individuals. This bill, which amends legislation governing the rights and obligations of the State Service, will impact approximately 36,000 people in this state. It also reduces protections on personal information held by state agencies for hundreds of thousands of Tasmanians, and I'll start with those concerns first.
Part 6 - Personal Information. Part 6 of the bill weakens the protections that apply to our personal information held by state government agencies. It expands the ways in which agencies can make non-consensual disclosure of that information. Where disclosure is genuinely restricted to protecting children and young people, I will absolutely support it. I recognise that clause 16(a) achieves that purpose because it enables information sharing about child sexual abuse concerns and reportable conduct across government agencies. It sets a high threshold and is clearly directed at child safety, naming the two relevant acts, the Registration to Work with Vulnerable People Act and the Child and Youth Safe Organisations Act. My concern is with clause 16(b), and I'll explain my concerns in more detail when we go into committee. According to the clause notes, 16(b):
Provides a pathway to enable information sharing across all government agencies regarding child sexual abuse concerns and reportable conduct.
But that is what 16(a) already achieves. Clause 16(b) allows all government agencies to request personal information with no requirement that it relate to child safety concerns at all. It will allow any agency to share personal information about a state servant, or actually any Tasmanian, wherever it reasonably believes this is necessary for the prevention, detection or investigation of any breach of any law. That is an extremely broad new power and its breadth should concern every member of this House. No doubt, there are government departments that have long wanted greater access to personal information. If they want that power, they should come to parliament and justify it openly, not have it inserted into a bill about child safety. It effectively hands new investigative powers to agencies that have no law enforcement training and no specialist legal expertise to exercise such a broad function responsibly. It is a textbook example of the government loosening important protections under the guise of child safety without the guardrails needed to actually confine the change to child safety and it is a theme that runs throughout this bill. I ask the Attorney‑General to explain to this House why clause 16(b) is needed at all and what work it does that is not already done by 16(a) or the existing schedule 2D to G of the Personal Information Protection Act.
In Part 7 of this bill, which covers the State Service Act, we seek to make significant changes to the State Service Act. Clause 18 introduces a requirement that members of The State Service be 'apolitical, efficient and effective'. These are worthy aspirations for a state service. My concern is that this amendment does not leave them as aspirations; it makes them principles of the State Service, which section 9(13) of the State Service Act requires an employee to uphold. That means an employee judged by their manager not to be either effective or efficient, however those terms are interpreted, can now be subjected to the same drawn-out, heavily criticised misconduct investigation process under Employment Direction 5, as Mrs Greene has talked about, as other forms of misconduct potentially resulting in termination. This is a highly concerning development for a public service that is already under siege from budget cuts and efficiency dividends.
I believe the government is cynically introducing this significant change under cover of a bill designed to improve child safety and I think that is disgraceful. The bill also extends these obligations to be efficient, effective and apolitical and not breach the law from conduct during employment to matters merely connected with employment, meaning these expectations would now reach into employees' lives outside work. The explanatory materials offer no justification for this change and certainly none connecting it to child safety. So, my second question to the minister is: what does a requirement to be efficient and effective have to do with child safety? This change was not recommended by the Watt review into the public service in 2021. I question its timing now, at a time when the Treasurer has made public sector cuts and efficiencies the main game. We know from an article in the Mercury this morning that the staff in your own department are being told they will need to reprioritise, abandon or delay tasks affected by the vacancy control your government is putting in place, minister. They have been told to seek counselling if the increased work pressures were causing them concern, and now you want to legislate a requirement for the State Service to be efficient and effective, as if they weren't facing enough pressure. Attorney, how is the State Service meant to be more effective, which is what you are requiring them to be courtesy of these amendments, when there are vacancies left unfilled by your vacancy control and fewer staff to do the same amount of work?
Clause 19 seeks to make 16 amendments to the State Service Code of Conduct. The minister says these amendments approve the State Service disciplinary framework to better protect children and young people. I support those that genuinely do, particularly the new clauses 5A and 5B, which provide that an employee must not at any time engage in reportable conduct under the Child and Youth Safe Organisations Act, or engage in conduct posing a foreseeable risk to a child accessing agency services. Both are recommended by the commission of inquiry and squarely address child safety, but my concern is with the amendments that have no connection to child safety.
Clauses 19(a), (b), (d), (g), (h), (j), (k) and (l) expand the code of conduct's reach from conduct 'in the course of employment' to conduct 'in connection with employment', a significant and, in my view, poorly justified expansion. The unions: Health and Community Services Union (HACSU), Community & Public Sector Union (CPSU), Unions Tasmania and the Australian Medical Association (AMA) have all raised serious concerns. They point out that 'in connection with' is a much broader legal test than 'in the course of' and may capture conduct occurring outside work hours, off site, unrelated to duties and otherwise lawful private conduct, with only an incidental link to employment. The risk is encroachment into employees' private lives, inconsistent interpretation across agencies, and unpredictable disciplinary outcomes.
I accept the Woolcott Review's finding that confining of the code of conduct in the course of duty hampered investigations into child sexual abuse. There's no denying that ‑ which is precisely why clauses 5A and B, which apply 'at any time', are recommended. But clauses 19(a), (b), (d), (h), (j), (k) and (l) go well beyond that specific mischief, with no connection to child safety at all. The CPSU describes 'in connection with' as:
Words of the broadest import, capable of capturing conduct with only the most incidental or remote link to employment.
Unions Tasmania warned these provisions lack clear legal or operational boundaries and risk arbitrary or uneven application. The Tasmanian Family and Sexual Violence Alliance, in their submission, cautions that bundling such wide-ranging changes under the banner of commission of inquiry reforms 'obscures their intent and risks these provisions being weaponised for matters entirely unrelated to child safety'. Laurel House warns against disproportionate scrutiny of minor private behaviour with no bearing on public trust or workplace safety.
Under this new test, State Servants will need to ask themselves, of almost everything they do outside work, whether it can be seen as connected to their employment. This is not a situational test but an open-ended relational one, and it will produce uncertain, chilling results, including self‑censorship in ordinary political and civic participation.
The AMA wrote to all members on 31 August. It's a letter which I seek leave to table.
Leave granted; paper tabled.
Ms BURNET - That has been distributed again. In this letter it poses the question the bill leaves unanswered:
At what point does conduct in an employee's private life acquire a sufficient connection to their State Service employment to become a disciplinary matter?
They have noted that the current 'in the course of employment' test is clear and well understood, while the proposed test could capture social, political, sporting, community or family life wherever some connection to employment can be asserted.
Can the minister assure this House that legitimate private political participation and professional advocacy will not be inadvertently captured by this change, or is that part of the intention of the change, Attorney‑General?
The minister points out that a 'connection with employment' test already applies to Commonwealth and New South Wales public servants, and that is largely true, but the comparison is incomplete. The Commonwealth change occurred in 2013 as part of a considered, calibrated reform process of the Public Service Act, not under the cover of a child safety bill. Critically, the Commonwealth public service is overseen by an independent public service commissioner empowered to determine how the values and employment principles apply, with binding, detailed guidance for managers, including the explicit statement that all employees are entitled to a private life. Tasmania has no equivalent independent body, and this government is even looking to abolish the Industrial Relations Commission and is also wanting to significantly reduce the number of public servants.
In my view, the elements of clause 19 are about giving the state broad power to control what employees do and say in their private lives, with no connection to improving child safety. The AMA agrees, writing that:
Legislation implementing commission of inquiry recommendations should remain focused on the harm it is intended to prevent and should not create an unnecessary broad disciplinary jurisdiction of the private lives of all State Service employees.
This expansion will also generate more Employment Directive 5 investigations ‑ itself a serious problem, as Mrs Greene alluded to. The AMA describes investigations extending for months and sometimes years, with devastating consequences for employees' mental health and professional lives, sustained anxiety and effects that persist even where allegations are ultimately not substantiated. This can impair the delivery of health service for months or even years. They have called for the bill to be matched with proper safeguards ensuring investigations are fair, proportionate and timely. In their original submission on this bill, they called for genuine further consultation with unions, professional associations and affected workforces before this bill proceeds.
These changes in Part 7 represent a significant erosion of workers' rights. They should not be hidden inside a bill about child safety. It should be purely concentrating on child safety. They warrant their own standalone bill with proper consultation and consideration of safeguards such as an independent public service commissioner. I think it's really important to think not about what the act is intending to do, the primary purpose of the act, but these secondary, significant impacts which should concern everybody in the Chamber, especially those who have regard for workers' rights. I'll be supporting aspects in the bill that genuinely, demonstrably protect children wholeheartedly. I cannot support the provisions that use the cover of child safety to erode the privacy and workplace rights of Tasmanians without justification, and I'll be moving that we go into a committee of the whole House. I look forward to hearing the Attorney-General's answers to my questions. I also thank everybody who has put in submissions to this. They are really passionate, they're very fulsome, and also I really appreciate the engagement that I've had with unions and the AMA, particularly in relation to my concerns.