EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
STATUTORY RULES 1987 No. 294
PUBLIC SERVICE REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT)
Issued with the authority of the Public Service Commission
Subsection 97 (1) of the Public Service Act 1922 (‘the Act’) provides, inter alia, that the Governor-General may make regulations, not inconsistent with the Act, prescribing matters required or permitted by the Act to be prescribed, or necessary or convenient to be prescribed, for carrying out or giving effect to the Act.
Section 33 of the Act concerns the application of the merit principle and the prohibition of patronage and discrimination. So far as is relevant, subsection 33 (4) provides that the reference to discrimination in subsection 33 (3) of the Act shall not be read as including a reference to:
(b) discrimination in relation to appointment that is not unlawful under the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 or the Sex Discrimination Act 1984 and is in accordance with a program to encourage the appointment of women or persons in a designated group to the Service, being a program that is declared by the regulations to be an approved program for the purposes of this paragraph.
The term ‘designated group’ is defined in section 7 of the Act to include ‘members of the Aboriginal race of Australia or persons who are descendants of indigenous inhabitants of the Torres Strait Islands’.
The Miller Report on Aboriginal Employment and Training recommended that Aboriginal people should receive training which would result in their receiving permanent employment in the organisation which trains them. The Public Service Commission has developed the Aboriginal Cadetship Program and the Aboriginal Technical Traineeship Program in response to that recommendation.
To ensure that the two programs fulfil their aims, it is necessary to restrict entry to them to Aboriginals. The regulations insert amendments to regulation 71B of the Public Service Regulations to bring the Aboriginal Cadetship Program and the Aboriginal Technical Traineeship Program within the exception in paragraph 33(4)(b) of the Act.