Page 2478 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 7 August 1990
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participate and indicated that there may be times when you might have to withdraw from the chairpersonship of that committee because of the question of bias.
There is more legal form on bias than Saturday's racing form at Randwick. One example of that, which has been pointed out in my statement, is when the Master of the Rolls, Lord Denning, dealt with an issue in 1969 and rightly said:
The court looks at the impression which would be given to other people -
in referring to the issue of bias -
Even if he was as impartial as could be, nevertheless if right minded persons would think that in the circumstances, there was a real likelihood of bias on his part then he should not sit ...
That comment of Lord Denning is entirely relevant in relation to the attendance of Executive Deputies at Assembly committee hearings. They become government committees.
Having set out Labor's position in relation to these areas and the recognition of that conflict of interest in one way or another by both Mrs Nolan and you, Mr Acting Speaker, in your role as a committee chairperson, I think it is clear that the Government needs to sit back and take another look at the chairing of these committees by Executive Deputies. It should look at that, in the context not of a win-lose battle with the Opposition but of arriving at a position which is acceptable to both sides of the house but which, most importantly, presents committees of this Assembly in an unbiased light as far as ordinary members of the community are concerned. That is not the case now. Something needs to be done, and the Government needs to look at it. If it does not, it will indicate its indifference to the committees being seen as arms of government.
Mr Acting Speaker, the recommendations are issues with which I would also like to deal. Recommendation 3 talks about the issue of $21m of reserve funds. The committee should have ensured that such detail was made available. It seems to me that if that sort of pressure is not applied by this committee it adds to the concern that community members might have about conflict of interest in the chairpersonship of such committees.
If a government policy might be offended by the actions of a committee, an ordinary person, I assume, would come to the rightful conclusion that the committee's actions were biased when they do things in accordance with, or to cover up, government policy. There is a real danger of that in the way in which the committees of this Assembly are structured.
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