Page 1938 - Week 06 - Thursday, 2 May 1991
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have pointed out that at law the operation of a body, such as this committee, with an Executive Deputy would be seen to involve bias. The rule against bias which applies to decision making bodies would lead to a conclusion that this committee is improperly constituted.
Mr Duby: You do not even know what an Executive Deputy does.
MR CONNOLLY: A court would never look into the internal operations of a parliament, quite properly; but the principle of law ought to be looked at. I am very, very disheartened that we have never heard a considered response on that point from government spokespersons. I suspect that we have not heard a considered response because they acknowledge that there could be no considered response.
Mr Deputy Speaker, the interjection that I heard from Mr Duby is that we do not even know what an Executive Deputy does. I do not know whether anyone knows what an Executive Deputy does, and that is the point. The public is being misled as to what Executive Deputies do and what the chairman of this committee does. The chairman has misled the public repeatedly but, most importantly, in his letter which was written on the letterhead of the Office of the Chief Minister to a constituent in Calwell. What Mr Jensen was doing for that constituent was admirable. He was acting as he should as a member; he was raising with the Government issues of concern to the constituency, trying to make a representation.
Mr Berry: Grandstanding a bit, too.
MR CONNOLLY: I will give Mr Jensen the benefit of acting as a local member should. Other members were also acting in that matter. There is no problem with the content of the letter. What was misleading, Mr Deputy Speaker, was that the letter was signed on the letterhead of the Office of the Chief Minister. That would give to the fair-minded member of the public who read that letter the misleading impression that Mr Jensen in some way had some executive responsibilities.
This whole question of the Executive Deputies is so confused in the public mind that we say that they cannot properly chair a committee while they wear their hat as Executive Deputy. It is an inherent contradiction. It is a clear contradiction to members of the public. The Executive Deputy in question does nothing to resolve that difficulty by misleading the public by writing a letter on an executive letterhead. The suggestion is that in some way he speaks with the authority of the Chief Minister.
Unless this issue is clarified, the committee system cannot work properly. That is something that we deeply regret because we would like to participate more fully in the committee system. The compromise solution, as Mr Moore suggests, is not that Executive Deputies be barred from
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