Page 2566 - Week 09 - Thursday, 8 August 1991
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Appeals Tribunal. The Motor Traffic (Amendment) Bill 1991 rectifies the anomalies in the review of decisions under the Motor Traffic Act by providing for review by the ACT Administrative Appeals Tribunal of administrative decisions of the Registrar and the Minister under that Act. The tribunal, of course, is a less formal forum for appeals against administrative decisions than the courts, and is more accessible to the community because it involves considerably lower costs. For this reason, those decisions which are currently appealable to the Magistrates Court and Supreme Court are to become reviewable by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
The Bill also repeals existing provisions in the Act which confer rights of appeal to the tribunal. Those existing rights of appeal and many new rights of appeal are consolidated as a new schedule 7 to the Motor Traffic Act. The tribunal is given jurisdiction to hear appeals against any of the decisions listed in the new schedule. When a decision of the type referred to in the new schedule 7 is made, a notice will be given to an affected person stating that an application may be made for a review of the decision to which the notice relates and also stating that the affected person may request a statement of reasons for the decision.
This Bill was developed under the previous Government but has been reviewed and endorsed by the Labor Government. The Bill is a very important one in removing inconsistencies in the Motor Traffic Act and providing basic rights of appeal against decisions of the bureaucracy, in line, perhaps, with the general trend in Australia in the last decade or so to provide more extensive appeal rights. I present the explanatory memorandum for the Motor Traffic (Amendment) Bill 1991.
Debate (on motion by Mr Stefaniak) adjourned.
SPECIAL PREMIERS CONFERENCE
Ministerial Statement and Papers
Debate resumed from 6 August 1991, on motion by Ms Follett:
That the Assembly takes note of the papers.
MR KAINE (Leader of the Opposition) (10.55): Mr Speaker, this series of Special Premiers Conferences - the first of which was held in October last year and the second of which was held only on 30 July, that being the most recent one which, of course, was attended by our Chief Minister - probably represents one of the most important things happening in Australia today. It does not get a great deal of publicity. It gets a bit of publicity around about the time that the Premiers meet for a couple of days and then it fades. But these Special Premiers Conferences, as the title implies, are special. Until October of last year the
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