Page 3170 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 12 September 1990
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What we are concerned with, and necessarily and gravely so, are appearances, not reality - possible suspicions, not proof.
In the case of Fingleton v. Christian Ivanoff, the 1976 South Australian Supreme Court case was repeatedly confirmed by the High Court. It said that what is required is that the public have a reasonable suspicion or a reasonable apprehension that a decision maker is biased.
Mr Speaker, it is not necessary to continue citing from the cases. The rule is clear. It would be extraordinary if this Assembly set for itself a lower standard than that set down by the law for administrative and judicial decision makers. It must be accepted that a member of the ACT community would have a reasonable apprehension that a person designated as an Executive Deputy, with responsibility for certain areas of government administration, would have a degree of bias when sitting as the chair of an Assembly committee with responsibility for inquiring into that area of activity. This is an important principle. The Government never seems interested in these principles, but it is an important principle. No other parliament in Australia would dream of establishing a parliamentary committee chaired by a Minister, for the proper reason that you have the conflict of executive and legislative responsibilities and also this question of the apparent bias.
There is a very simple solution for the Government to get over this problem. If Government members challenge that they cannot exclude Executive Deputies from chairing committees because they took the decision to appoint everyone as Executive Deputies and therefore they would have no committee chairs, all we say would be necessary is to reshuffle responsibilities on these committees so that an Executive Deputy who may chair a committee does not have portfolio responsibility for that area of government administration that the committee may be inquiring into. I would put it to the Chief Minister that this simple and very sensible reform would resolve our concerns and would allow us to take part in these committees.
As I said before, it is with regret that I cannot take part in this inquiry. It is an area of interest and an important area of law reform. I have no personal difficulty with working with Mr Stefaniak; nor, indeed, do any other members of the Opposition who have found themselves unable to take part in committees because of the conflict in principle with an Executive Deputy with portfolio responsibilities chairing a committee. The Government seems to think this is an amusing objection. It says we should take our positions responsibly and take part in committee work. Mr Speaker, we are taking a very responsible stand by trying to impose proper standards of committee behaviour on this Assembly.
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