Parliament's Regulations Review Committee is seeking submissions for an inquiry into parliamentary scrutiny of confirmable instruments.

The committee has released a Briefing to investigate confirmable instruments which provides terms of reference. The committee says it undertook a briefing to investigate confirmable instruments before determining whether to open an inquiry. This information is now made available to assist with submissions.

The briefing identifies two concerns:

• The nature of the constitutional protection provided by the process of confirming secondary legislation is not well understood within Parliament or the Government.
• The confirmation process as it is currently conducted may not provide an effective form of parliamentary scrutiny of secondary legislation.

The committee says it is undertaking an inquiry to improve understanding of the constitutional importance of the confirmation process, it wants to consider the need for more guidance on when it should be used, and it wants to determine whether any changes are required to parliamentary or government processes to make scrutiny of secondary legislation more effective.

The inquiry terms of reference are:

• Is the current process of parliamentary scrutiny of confirmable instruments effective?
• Are any changes required to parliamentary or government processes to make the parliamentary scrutiny of confirmable instruments more effective?

Submissions are required by 11:59pm on Friday, 3 April 2020.