Customs Tariff Amendment Bill 2016 [2017] AUSStaCSBSD 10 (8 February 2017)

• Customs Tariff Amendment Bill 2016
• Significant matters in delegated legislation 21

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Customs Tariff Amendment Bill 2016

Purpose	This bill seeks to amend the Customs Tariff Act 1995 (the Act) to: • repeal Schedule 1 to the Act; • repeal Section 16A of the Act; • insert additional notes into Schedule 3 of the Act, to clarify the classification of certain fruits, vegetables and pastas; and • amend the text of Item 44 of Schedule 4 to the Act, to provide for an end date for the Item
Portfolio	Immigration and Border Protection
Introduced	House of Representatives on 30 November 2016

Significant matters in delegated legislation ^[21]

1.22 Schedule 1 to the Customs Tariff Act 1995 (the Tariff Act) lists the countries and places for which preferential rates of customs duty for certain goods apply.

1.23 Item 11 of this bill proposes to repeal this Schedule and items 1–5 and 8–10 would allow the current content of the repealed Schedule to instead be included in Customs Tariff Regulations. As a result, changes to the list of countries entitled to receive preferential rates of customs duty will not be subject to the full range of parliamentary scrutiny inherent in bringing proposed changes in the form of an amending bill.

1.24 The explanatory memorandum merely states that this proposed change will enable 'countries and places to be more easily updated when required'.^[22] The committee's view is that significant matters, such as matters relating to the imposition of customs duty, should be included in primary legislation unless a sound justification for the use of delegated legislation is provided.

1.25 The committee requests the Assistant Minister's advice as to why the content of Schedule 1 to the Tariff Act is proposed to be moved to the regulations, particularly addressing the impact that this change will have on parliamentary scrutiny.

Pending the Assistant Minister's reply, the committee draws Senators' attention to the provisions, as they may be considered to delegate legislative powers inappropriately and to insufficiently subject the exercise of legislative power to parliamentary scrutiny, in breach of principles 1(a)(iv) and 1(a)(v) of the committee's terms of reference.

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[21] Schedule 1, items 1–5 and 8–11, repeal of Schedule 1 to the Customs Tariff Act 1995.

[22] Explanatory memorandum, p. 6.