In the last post I began looking at the terms ‘Minister’ who at the moment, I assume to be Senator the Hon Chris Evans as he represents the Commonwealth on MCTEE which is compromised of the ‘relevant’ education type Ministers from all States and Territories.
I am assuming MCTEE is the ‘Ministerial Council’ based on the definition in Section 3 (ie “Ministerial Council means the body known as the Ministerial Council for Tertiary Education and Employment on the day on which this definition commences”)
There are 3 interesting things here.
1. I note the inclusion of the words “on the day on which this definition commences” in the above definition. This date I assumed is the 1/7/11. Maybe that is just how laws have to written but no other definition has this phrase stated or included. I am assuming the ‘Ministerial Council for Tertiary Education and Employment’ is MCTEE as we know it today, for no other reason than the letters match the current acronym and name of the current Council. I know I am straying into ‘conspiracy theory’ territory here but .... MCTEE will be still MCTEE as we know it after 1/7/11 won’t it?
2. Under (s 157) (1) (g) it talks about the Chair of the Ministerial Council but given MCTEE is chaired by the Commonwealth Government Minister (ie the same person who is referred to as “The Minister” in the rest of the ACT) I don’t understand why they didn’t just say The Minister again.
3. The information on ‘Training.com.au’ about MCTEE (@ 21/6/11) is very different to the information (it is old and outdated) to the information on DEEWR which again I assume is current as of this date. But given NTIS is being relaced by Training.gov.au which is scheduled to go live in July 2011 (and currently has a ‘holding page’ at that website) I guess we can also assume that the Training.com.au website will also be replaced by the currently being built Trainign.gov.au site. Once all the replacements happen let us hope that information on 2 government sites actually is the same to help avoid confusion and providing out of date references.
The role of MCTEE is important and will be further outlined in a later post. The current structure of MCTEE ensures that all States and Territories are represented, not to mention it also means there are at least 9 people sitting around a table discussing these issues.
While The Minster can do a fair amount of things according to this ACT, his individual power, (and therefore I assume the ultimate power of the 3 Commissioners) appears to be somewhat shared, diluted, constrained through the required involvement of and reference to ‘The Ministerial Council’
For example: (s 157) (3) it states
“The Minister must not set out a function in a legislative instrument under paragraph (1)(p) unless the Ministerial Council has agreed to the function.”
Now 2 things:
1. A new for us (I think) term is “legislative instrument” and in the last post I noted ‘remember’ that term. In trying to research and understand all the implications of this I am reminded again that I did not study law at Uni but rather teaching! At the moment, it is ‘doing my head in’. Suffice to say that I will look into this more over the next couple of days but from what I can gather it is all about making something legally enforceable rather than a guideline, recommendation, requested action.
Perhaps the difference between a mother saying “You will clean your room NOW” (i.e. not negotiable). But the thing is, I always thought our Standards were like this anyway. Why they have to enshrined in this manner I don’t really understand but I guess there is a reason.
2. Right under (s 157) (3) there is 2 notes
Note 1: For how the Ministerial Council gives agreement, see section 191.
This is pretty easy .. basically it says they give their agreement in line with the procedures for them to give their agreement ..
Note 2: Section 42 (disallowance) and Part 6 (sunsetting) of the Legislative Instruments Act 2003 do not apply to a legislative instrument that sets out a function (see sections 44 and 54 of that Act).
BUT this one is the one that is doing my head in. Similar wording is all through the ACT so obviously it is important but I don’t understand what it means enough to be able to explain it.
The other thing to note is that at this date of posting any copies of any proposed legislative Instruments are DRAFT ONLY. More to come on the topic of legislative instruments later ... and I assume at some time we will have some information session on them BUT again with only 9 days to go would actually hope we know all this by now!
I’ll post later on some of the other terms
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