The Regulations Review Committee has examined the Subordinate Legislation Confirmation Bill (No 3) and recommends that it be passed with the amendments shown.

The purpose of this bill is to confirm certain subordinate legislation that is revoked at a specified date unless confirmed by an Act of Parliament. If not confirmed, certain confirmable instruments and annual confirmable instruments would be revoked, or taken to be invalid for their past operation.

In passing this bill, the House would approve the instruments in the bill, allowing them to continue in force.

The five government departments¹ responsible for administering the orders and regulations in the bill all considered confirmation necessary to prevent the instruments from being revoked in accordance with their statutory deadlines², and therefore ceasing to be legally enforceable.

The reasons for these confirmations include:

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  changes to eligibility criteria for tuition subsidy funding

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  adjustments to maximum amounts of accommodation supplement and four accommodation supplement areas

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  adjusting benefit and allowance rates, and duties, to reflect movements in CPI

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  import prohibitions

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  prescription and collection of levies.

We recommend inserting new clause 8(d) to confirm the Excise and Excise-equivalent Duties Table (Alcoholic Beverages Indexation) Amendment Order 2017 before it is revoked at the close of 30 June 2018.

We recommend inserting new clause 9A to confirm the Energy (Petrol, Engine Fuel, and Gas) Levy Regulations 2017 (LI 2017/147) before they are revoked at the close of 30 June 2018.

We recommend inserting new clause 11 to confirm the Social Security (Budget 2017—Rates of, and Areas for, Accommodation Supplement) Order 2017 (LI 2017/133) before it is revoked at the close of 30 June 2018.

These items of subordinate legislation were all made after the bill as introduced was finalised, but before 1 July 2017.