Draft local laws and 'significant difference'
Section 3.13 of the Act provides that the local law process must be restarted from the beginning if the final version of the local law will be significantly different to what was originally advertised to the public.
The Act does not define the term 'significantly different'. However, the department recommends restarting the process if any changes have been made to the draft which will impact the rights, privileges, or liabilities which the law would otherwise have
conferred.
Changes which merely relate to formatting, cross-references and minor drafting errors will generally not be significant. By contrast, changes that add a completely new clause, delete a clause or change the legal effect of a clause is likely to be significant.
If a situation arises where a draft has become significantly different, it is insufficient for the local government to halt the process and hold a second submission period. The section 3.12 process must begin from the start.
Once the final local law is made by a local government, the Joint Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation will consider whether significant changes have occurred during the drafting process. If the committee concludes that the law-making process should
have been restarted, the local law may potentially be disallowed by Parliament.
During the drafting of a local law, the department will often provide drafting suggestions and comments. If the department believes that following these suggestions may lead to a significantly different local law, this will be explicitly mentioned in
the department’s comments. However, the committee and the Parliament will ultimately determine whether changes are significant or not.
Confidentiality of committee correspondence
As part of its role in scrutinising local laws, the Joint Standing Committee on Delegated Legislation will often send correspondence to local governments. These letters may:
- raise concerns with the local law;
- seek further information; or
- advise that a local law may be recommended for disallowance unless the local government agrees to carry out particular amendments.
These letters form a part of the committee’s official deliberations, meaning they are protected under the Parliamentary Privileges Act 1891.
Any unauthorised disclosure of the letters or the information contained within them may potentially constitute a contempt of Parliament. The letters will usually contain the following confidentiality warning:
"This correspondence including any attachments is confidential and privileged. Your local government may only discuss the content of this letter and any attachments with the Western Australian Local Government Association, the Department of Local
Government, Sport and Cultural Industries and the local government’s legal advisors to the extent necessary to obtain information the committee seeks. Each person to whom you distribute this material must be made aware of its confidential and
privileged status."
Local governments should ensure that any correspondence received by the committee is treated as private and confidential. The letters should not be included in any publicly available versions of agendas or minutes. Councils should also ensure that if
a council member wishes to discuss the content of the letters, the meeting is closed to the public for the duration of that discussion.
If a local government seeks to have committee correspondence released to the community for any reason, it can make a formal request to the committee to release the letter for public viewing.
If a situation arises where a confidential letter is inadvertently released, action should be taken to mitigate the situation as soon as possible (for example, removing the document from the local government’s website). The committee should also
be advised of the incident and actions taken.
In certain cases, committee correspondence may state that the committee is happy for the contents to be disclosed either to the public or to specified parties. However, if the correspondence contains a confidentiality warning, it should be presumed that parliamentary privilege applies.