Page 2867 - Week 13 - Wednesday, 22 November 1989
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The Government is also going to move to take over the court system after 30 June. Soon, one hopes, there will be appointed some type of bipartisan committee of the Assembly to commence looking at a whole range of issues, including the question of parole and other work that has been done by the Federal Attorney-General's Department for a long time. There will be necessary liaison with the New South Wales Department of Corrective Services. As an incidental function of that liaison, we will need to determine whether we accept the programs and the activities of the New South Wales Department of Corrective Services in terms of incarceration, retribution, punishment and all those issues that involve prisoner exchange between the Territory and other areas.
Certainly the Chief Minister is yet to make a considered statement to the justices of the Supreme Court in relation to concerns that have been aired, discreetly, as to tenure after 1 July 1989. The Rally has said previously that we believe there should be a statement at the earliest possible time indicating the prospective interest of this Government in ensuring that the judges are not made removable by this chamber but by some other process to ensure that the closeness with which we live to that judiciary never results in imperilling its necessarily complete independence from executive and legislative interference.
MR STEFANIAK (4.44): Just briefly, I would like to support a number of comments my colleague Mr Collaery made in relation to the Legal Aid Office and also the question of law libraries, which, as he said, are horrendously expensive. Indeed, the bound volumes are often $100 per book, and I think his comments were most appropriate.
During the course of the estimates I asked several questions of the Chief Minister in relation to certain things that are going to have to happen by June and July next year. They include consideration of just what type of prosecution service, for a start, we are going to have when we take over the criminal courts and the magistrates courts in July of next year and also the question of the additional funding involved and the additional people and resources which will have to be available to the ACT at that time. That is more appropriate for next year, but the Government will have to involve itself in a lot of planning in the next six months.
MR HUMPHRIES (4.45): Mr Speaker, on the same point, I raised the issue of duplication within the legal services of the Administration some time ago and in particular with respect to the separate legal section which has been established within the department of Mr Berry. It is still a matter of concern to the Liberal Party, and I know that the Government has been looking at this matter for about four or five months. I hope it will not need to look at the question for much longer before it makes a decision on this.
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