Ivana Bacik (Independent)

I am grateful to the Minister of State and Senator McDonald for the points they made that the prisoner is in custody and regulations already apply. I would have assumed that. However, section 12 suggests something different. If those rules are already applicable, as they are, to persons who are already lawfully in custody, why is the Minister of State giving himself the power to prescribe additional standards? That is clearly because, as the Minister of State acknowledged, there may well be other regulations provided for.

As Senator Regan said, we as legislators must have regard to the way in which the Minister of State will prescribe such regulations. We are not trying to do the Minister of State's job for him and put in what the regulations would say. We are simply saying that as legislators, we have a duty to ensure the Minister of State is given some direction or criteria by which the regulations would be made. We know there are existing regulations. What I specifically said in the amendment was that any new standards or regulations to be developed would be in accordance with existing standards. The amendment is not trying to be too prescriptive, but trying to provide an overarching policy by which a Minister of State will exercise his delegated power to make the regulations.