EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
STATUTORY RULES 1985 NO. 65
PUBLIC SERVICE REGULATIONS (AMENDMENT)
Issued with the authority of the Public Service Board
Sub-section 97(1) of the Public Service Act 1922 (the Act) provides, inter alia, that the Public Service Board may, with the approval of the Governor-General, make regulations prescribing all matters which are required or permitted to be prescribed, for carrying out or giving effect to the Act.
Section 47 of the Act provides for the appointment of persons as officers of the Service to be subject to probation. This enables the services of officers on probation to be terminated for reasons relating to misconduct without recourse to the discipline provisions of the Act.
Division 6 of Part III of the Act provides a comprehensive discipline code applicable generally to officers of the Service. Section 63T of the Act permits regulations to be made extending the application of the discipline provisions to temporary employees. Regulations have been made so that the discipline provisions apply to employees employed under section 82 of the Act who have been so employed for 12 months and to employees who are engaged for a period exceeding 12 months. In the latter case the discipline provisions apply from the beginning of their period of employment.
Section 82 of the Act provides for the employment of persons in a temporary capacity and enables the employment of persons in the Service who cannot be appointed because they do not meet the Australian citizenship requirement.
Sub-section 82(6) enables the Chief Officer of a Department to terminate the services of an employee at any time. This power however is subject to sub-section 82(6A) so that where the disciplinary provisions of the Act apply to an employee, the employee’s services may not be terminated for discipline related reasons without recourse to the discipline provisions.
Section 34 of the Act was recently amended to provide that a person is not eligible for appointment to the Service unless, inter alia, he is an Australian citizen. Formerly it was sufficient that a person be a British subject.
At the time of this amendment the Government approved a proposal that a non-citizen who is a permanent resident but has not satisfied the residential requirement for citizenship or a permanent resident who has applied for citizenship but has not yet been granted citizenship, may apply for positions in the Service, and if selected on merit, may be offered fixed term employment under section 82(4) of the Act at the relevant level for the period it is likely to take for citizenship to be conferred.
The statutory rules amend the regulations which extend the disciplinary provisions of Division 6 of Part III of the Act so that those provisions do not apply to persons employed under section 82 of the Act pending their appointment as officers upon their being able to meet the nationality requirement of section 34 of the Act, until they have been so employed for 12 months. This amendment enables Chief Officers to terminate the employment of such persons under sub-section 82(6) of the Act during the first 12 months for the kinds of reasons that in the case of an officer would result in the annulment of his or her probationary appointment, without reference to the disciplinary provisions of the Act.
The intention is to place employees who are to be appointed following the necessary grant of citizenship on a footing as close as possible to that applying to officers.
The statutory rules also effect a drafting change to regulation 116A
Details of the regulations are set out below.
Regulation 1 effects an unrelated minor amendment to regulation 116A to correct incorrect references to ‘sub-regulation (1)’ by substituting references to ‘sub-regulation 116(1)’.
Regulation 2 amended regulation 165 to provide that an employee engaged by a Department to serve for not less than 1 year pending the granting of Australian citizenship will not be subject to the provisions of the disciplinary code for the first 12 months of employment.