EXPLANATORY STATEMENT
Statutory Rules 1989 No 342
Remuneration Tribunal (Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations (Amendment)
(Issued by the Authority of the Minister for Industrial Relations)
Under subsections 5(1) and 7(3) of the Remuneration Tribunal Act 1973 (the Act) the Remuneration Tribunal (the Tribunal) has the function of inquiring into and determining the remuneration to be paid to, amongst others, the holders of public offices other than holders of those offices who are members of, or candidates for election to, either House of the Parliament.
By paragraph 3(4)(ra) of the Act, “public office” does not include an office or appointment declared by regulations made for the purposes of that paragraph to be a principal executive office.
Subsection 5(2) of the Act gives the Tribunal the additional function of providing advice to public statutory corporations, government business enterprises and other employing bodies in relation to the terms and conditions (including remuneration and allowances) on which principal executive offices are to be held.
The effect of declaring a public office to be a principal executive office in a regulation made for the purposes of paragraph 3(4)(ra) of the Act, therefore, is to remove that office from the determination making power of the Tribunal under subsections 5(1) and 7(3) of the Act and simultaneously bring it within the advisory jurisdiction of the Tribunal under subsection 5(2) of the Act.
The purpose of removing an office from the determination making jurisdiction of the Tribunal and placing it within the advisory jurisdiction is to enable the Board of the relevant Government business enterprise to itself determine a remuneration package for the office in question after consultation with the Tribunal, rather than have the remuneration package determined by the Tribunal.
Regulation 4 of the Remuneration Tribunals (Miscellaneous Provisions) Regulations (the Principal Regulations) provides that for the purposes of paragraph 3(4)(ra) of the Act, each of the offices specified in Schedule 1 to the Regulations is declared to be a principal executive office.
Under section 13 of the Act the Governor-General may make regulations, not inconsistent with the Act, prescribing all 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.
Each of the following public offices has been declared by regulation for the purposes of paragraph 3(4)(ra) of the Act to be a principal executive office:
• Managing Director, Commonwealth Banking Corporation;
• Deputy Managing Director, Commonwealth Banking Corporation;
• Managing Director, Commonwealth Serum Laboratories Commission;
• Chief Executive, Qantas Airways Limited.
At the time the regulation was made these offices were within the determination making power of the Tribunal under subsections 5(1) and 7(3) of the Act. The declaration of these offices under paragraph 3(4)(ra) of the Act has removed them from the determination making jurisdiction and brought them within the advisory jurisdiction of the Tribunal.
This has been effected by inserting a reference to each of these offices into Schedule 1 to the Principal Regulations.
In addition, the reference to the Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation in Schedule 1 has been amended by adding the word “Limited”. This reflected the change in the name of that organisation which occurred on 1 July 1989 with the commencement of section 12 of the Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation (Conversion into a Public Company) Act 1989 and its registration under the Companies Act 1981 as the Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation Limited.
For the sake of clarity, the regulation effected these amendments by repealing the existing Schedule 1 and substituting a new Schedule 1 in which the items in the Schedule have been renumbered.