Industry Minister Ed Husic has been handed two additional policy priorities following a reallocation of executive responsibilities among ministers through an Administrative Arrangements Order.
Responsibility for food and beverage processing industry policy has been shifted from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries, and Forestry to Mr Husic’s Industry, Science, Resources portfolio. Further, the Industry portfolio has also gained responsibility for co-ordination of supply chain resilience policy.
Other matters dealt with in the AAO include cybercrime, which was added to the Attorney-General’s department; and carbon capture utilisation and storage policies and programs, which was added to the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water.
The Administrative Arrangements Order came into effect last Friday after it was signed by Governor General David Hurley the day prior. This was done on the advice of the Federal Executive Council, which consists of all federal government ministers and the Prime Minister alongside the Governor General.
Mr Husic has also already been engaged with supply chain resilience policy having attended the Global Supply Chain Resilience Forum in July this year. The forum was attended by ministers from the UK, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Indonesia, Japan, India, Canada, Mexico, Brazil, the European Union, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The other changes to administrative arrangements are:
- National child protection policy and strategy’ is amended to ‘National child sexual abuse policy and strategy’ under matters dealt with by the Attorney-General’s department
- ‘Co-ordination of early childhood development policy and responsibilities’ is transferred from the matters dealt with by the Department of Education to the matters dealt with by the Department of Social Services
These changes follow the first Administrative Arrangements Order which commenced on July 1 and included several machinery of government changes.
Among the new changes was the establishment of the new Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment, and Water, merging responsibilities from the former Department of Industry, Science, Energy, and Resources, and the former Department of Agriculture, Water, and the Environment.
