What's on Porter's plate?

Where are we with Christian Porter's legislative agenda? ... The multi-hatted attorney general is a busy boy ... Rejigging Bills to squeeze them through the senate ... Not much movement on the Integrity Commission front ... Religious discrimination bill is a sinkhole of misery ... Family law is stuck ... Union bashing and other tricks upfront ... Janek Drevikovsky reports 

Porter: three ringed circus

After a long summer of crisis, the package-deal minister that is Christian Porter is back once more into the somber business of government. 

Porter has to perform a triple act, as AG, industrial relations minister and leader of the house - all in the pantomime of the Morrison government. 

So what whirling cabrioles does he have in-store this year? 

Family law reform 

It's round two for Porter's plan to fuse the Family Court and the Federal Circus Court into one judicial body. This is largely a rerun of the same plan that caused ructions early last year, before being scuttled by an unruly Senate crossbench.

Porter introduced a new Federal Court Bill to the House late last year. If passed, the FamCa and FCC will become one, clunkily dubbed the Federal Circuit and Family Court (FCFA). It will have two wings, one devoted to family law (division 1) and the other to the general federal stuff (division 2).  

The proposed appeal division of the Family Court has been scrapped and instead, all division 1 judges will be able to hear family appeals. 

It's all in the name of structural efficiency, according to Porter:   

"While there was disagreement about what approach the government should take, there is widespread recognition that the current structural arrangements in the courts are simply not working to the benefit of Australian families."

With a single "point of entry" Willy Alstergren will trade in his two wigs for one.

This "synergistic" coup is thanks to a legion of consultancy firms, including KPMG, EY and PwC - whose reports on family law won glowing commendation from the AG. 

Meanwhile, the family law reforms suggested by the government's own ALRC have been almost wholly rejected, and do not feature in the revised Bill.  

Taming the unions

Also doing a Lazarus-number is the government's Ensuring Integrity Bill, which has been kicking around since early July last year. It is designed to cow wayward unions with harsh new regulations and penalties. The bill was defeated in the Senate last year, Jacqui Lambie withdrawing her casting vote after the government refused to back her amendments. 

Now the industrial relations minister, is rejigging the bill for a new parliamentary session. 

In a chumsy chat last week with favoured Perth talkback host Gareth Parker, the IR minister said he was in talks with the rebel crossbench:   

"I'll be talking with Jacqui [Lambie], as I will with Rex [Patrick] and I'll also talk again with Pauline [Hanson]. 

It's a very important legislation, the lawlessness on Australian construction sites is out of control and the CFMEU just seem to take massive fines as the cost of doing business - that's the cost of their business model." 

In recent weeks, Senator Lambie has called on Porter to take up her pet amendments, which are designed to protect the rights of teachers, nurses and firefighters to strike.

As originally presented, Porter's bill threatened rogue unions with deregistration, for example if their officials were found guilty of a crime. 

Lambie objected on grounds that the bill would see service unions prosecuted for minor misdemeanours, like paperwork errors. 

"We want to make sure this legislation attacks the bad eggs," she said on ABC radio.  

Porter has since secured Centre Alliance's support. But as recently as January 29, Pauline Hanson was reported to have no intention of supporting the bill, meaning Lambie again holds the legislation's fate in her hands.  

Religious discrimination 

Then there's Porter's mishmash of a religious discrimination bill, a completely unnecessary piece of legislation that manages to alienate everyone.

As yet just a draft, the bill is the conceptual spawn of former AG Phillip Ruddock's religious freedom review - a sop to pacify the government's religious conservatives following the passage of the marriage equality legislation.

The bill is to be shepherded through a mire of public consultations and inevitable Senate hearings. 

So far, it's proven a thankless task: the second round of submissions has just closed, and neither the sinners nor the saints are happy. 

The irreligious (plus the Uniting Church) say the bill will legitimise hurtful speech and behaviour, by allowing believers to discriminate against any and all, so long as they do so for an honestly-held reason. 

There are fears, for example, that religious doctors will be able to refuse contraceptives or other medical services to vulnerable people, should their faith instruct them to do so. 

Most of the faithful think the bill doesn't go far enough. The Australian Christian Lobby would like to see the whole thing done over from scratch. Amongst other complaints, the Lobby objects that religious bodies undertaking "commercial activities" are insufficiently protracted by the bill. 

Even the very conservative Senator Fierravanti-Wells wants the bill to be scrapped because it is flawed. She says religious protections should be part of a single anti-discrimination framework. 

The Christian Porter is making no promises about when the bill will come before parliament.

"So I don't have a deadline for a vote in parliament," he told the Press Club last year. "I mean, that's going to be a complicated process." 

The Integrity Commission 

Where oh where is the long-promised federal ICAC? Both parties made solemn election vows to bring such a body into existence. The Coalition's version was dubbed the Commonwealth Integrity Commission, or CIC. Labor's version was the National Integrity Commission, or NIC.  

Porter insists he's hard at work, but maybe his plate is too full and he can't get it to. In his chat with Perth radio man Gareth Parker, the AG said: 

"[It's] very close. It's a very large piece of legislation - over 300 pages, so it is very close."

The corruption-buster, as detailed in pre-election policy documents, is a twin-headed beast. It has wide powers when investigating federal law enforcement agencies and personnel, who could be subject to public hearings and public declarations of corruption. 

Far weaker is the division investigating the public sector, including politicians. There, hearings will be in camera, and no public declarations of corruption can be made. 

As Porter's told Gareth:

"... hearings can be public on the law enforcement side. We don't favour public hearings on the public sector side for a variety of reasons." 

No doubt the Opposition and cross bench will have other ideas. 

The attorney claims that the CIC will have powers "greater than a royal commission". 

"... people can be compelled into hearings, they can be compelled to give evidence under threat of criminal penalty. It will have the ability to tap phones, gather evidence, have warrants, greater powers than a royal commission." 

When it will arrive is anyone's guess - that is a matter "outside of my control", the AG said. 

"I can't give a watertight guarantee as to when it might be operative."  

Porter's enthusiasm for an strong federal anti-corruption commission can be gauged by the fact that he thinks the Labor opposition should apologise to the energy minister Angus Taylor, because the AFP decided not to investigate complaints about the falsification of a document that Taylor wanted published in The Daily Telegraph. 

Defamation reform 

In a Press Club speech late last year, the hydra-headed AG flagged sweeping reforms to the law of defamation. An update to the uniform national laws is already underway, with draft legislation released and due to be enacted by midyear. 

Porter set his sights on the second stage of reform, and already he recommends that social media companies should be liable for their users' defamatory posts.

The AG reasoned that old school media already has this liability, after the decision in Voller found news outlets were responsible for third-party comments on their Facebook pages.  

"What is clear is the playing field is not at all fair at the moment," his Portership told the assembled hacks. 

"My own view is that these online platforms should be held to essentially the same standards as other publishers."

There's been scant word thereafter on the second round of reforms dealing with online platforms and publishers, takedown orders and the like. The legal issues are thorny, since the social media giants often operate under the protection of US internet law. 

Those with an understanding of the internet and liability for defamation and contemp have poo-pooed Porter's suggestion as unworkable. 

Already, in an apparent retort to the AG's Press Club speech, Facebook has said "digital platforms and media organisations are currently on an equal footing" when performing "comparable functions". 

Wage reform

Two recent additions to the Porter's lineup touch on employment issues. 

First, there's a bill in the works to crack down on wage theft, which looks set to criminalise intentional but not inadvertent underpayment. 

Second, the he's considering legislation to prevent casuals from "double dipping" on their sick leave entitlements. 

The proposal is a response to a Federal Court decision last year which found casuals working three 12-hour shifts a week could claim 120 hours a year in sick leave, while those working the same 36 hours, but spread across five shifts, could claim only 72 hours. 

Shocking. It should be stamped out. And Porter is just the sort of politician to do it. 

High Court 

He's also trying to find a way around the the High Court's decision in the Aboriginal aliens case. He thinks the minority judges got it right and he's set his departmental lawyers the task of weaving a way around the constitutional thickets so Peter Dutton can deport Aboriginals who fall foul of the "character test". 

Not that Porter will be required to invest much time in constitutional recognition of the first Australians, or an Indigenous voice to parliament. These are well back on the stove, with the gas turned off.