Page 4783 - Week 16 - Thursday, 29 November 1990
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MR COLLAERY (Attorney-General) (10.46): Mr Speaker, I am delighted to respond to what I think is a good-natured challenge, for once, from the Australian Labor Party. I believe that Mrs Grassby sincerely believes in her case, for once. This is a good debate today. It is a very important debate. It is an extremely important debate, and - - -
Ms Follett: That is why you interrupted all through it, is it?
MR COLLAERY: Mr Speaker, let the record show that the Leader of the Opposition has graced us today, but she is writing out her Christmas cards. The Labor Party is in decay. Of course, we all know that there can be spontaneous combustion from a compost heap.
Ms Follett: On a point of order, Mr Speaker: There is a Bill before us, the Careless Use of Fire (Amendment) Bill. I do not believe that the subject of the Labor Party is in any way relevant.
MR SPEAKER: I do not believe that that is a valid point. Please proceed, Mr Collaery.
MR COLLAERY: I can appreciate the sensitivity of the Leader of the Opposition about the Labor Party at the moment. She has found herself in the Labor Party and, if she needs to get herself out of it, that is her problem.
The issues here are exercising governments around Australia. The principal issue is: should the Crown, or the Government, be able to hide behind a shield of statutory immunity - Crown immunity - that has flowed down to us from the British legal system over so many hundreds of years? I would like to start my comments by quoting some remarks from the New South Wales Law Reform Commission report of 1975. The report said this:
The tenor of the cases examined gives us the stronger reason to conclude that the special protections for public authorities are, in general, mischievous and inimical to the due course of justice. We think the decisions clearly point to a need for some revision of the law. The best solution, in our view, is to strike at the source of the problem and eliminate the advantages which public authorities are given over private litigants.
As a private solicitor, I would like Mrs Grassby to dwell for a moment on the devastation that has been caused, and was caused some years ago, to landholders in and about the Territory. I can remember seeing some very, very dejected and devastated people in my office. At the time they faced, along with others, a very stiff fight against ACTEW to secure compensation for damage suffered to their
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