Page 276 - Week 01 - Thursday, 14 February 1991
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I do point out that there is a very important distinction between these Bills to which Mr Connolly has not drawn attention. I hope that it has nothing to do with the fact that the three speakers that we have heard on this are in fact legal professionals themselves. In clause 6(1) of the Royal Commissions Bill it says:
A person shall not be appointed as a commissioner unless the person -
(a) is or has been a Judge; or
(b) is a legal practitioner and has been enrolled as a legal practitioner for not less than 5 years.
I can see the need and the importance for having a legal practitioner on some sorts of inquiries - probably the vast majority of inquiries. The Inquiries Bill, however, does not have that requirement at all. We have a major distinction in that way. If we were to try to favour the Liberal philosophy of having as little legislation as we possibly can, then I think, in fact, that there is room for a compromise. I think that the suggestion that Mr Connolly has brought up is eminently sensible.
If we have a powerful body which, in this case, is identified as a royal commission inquiry, which covers the other things that are intended to be achieved by the Inquiries Bill, then we ought be able to proceed with one piece of legislation. In fact, I do not really see any reason why one could not remove that provision in clause 6(1) that the commissioner has to be a judge or a legal practitioner. I would expect that in almost every case that would be the case. That is how the appointment would be made.
However, I can think of certain inquiries where, in fact, somebody of legal training may not be the most appropriate person. One of the topical issues at the moment is the banking industry. It may well be that if an inquiry was made in the ACT into a bank here - and I doubt that that would necessarily be the case - then it would be most important to have somebody with a strong accounting and economic background. That background may well not be available in a prominent person in the legal profession. It may be appropriate to appoint, in addition to a judge, somebody with that kind of background who stands out as being prominent in the area.
In fact, in some ways I certainly support the notion that Mr Connolly has of producing one Bill to cover these inquiries. I also think it is appropriate that we drop the words "royal commission" from what Mr Connolly has described as an "anachronistic" title. Whilst I accept the idea that was put forward by Mr Humphries that the public understands that a royal commission is something of greater power than other inquiries and is the sort of inquiry we use for the most serious of cases, I think that it is not necessary for that title to be used in the ACT. We now
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