Page 3717 - Week 13 - Tuesday, 15 October 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Parliamentary Counsel, sat down this afternoon and spent many hours with Mr Collaery and Mr Stefaniak, going through both the community groups' concerns and the legitimate concerns that the Liberal Party and the Residents Rally had and trying to reach a compromise solution.
I am very confident that the position we reach tonight, which is that we will, hopefully, agree unanimously to the in-principle stage of this legislation, will be a very positive signal to the community that the Assembly is united on this. I hope that we will then progress, fairly shortly, to deal with the detail stage and a slate of amendments, moved by me from the Government or accepted by the Government from the floor, which will lead to legislation which leads the Australian community.
There is one issue which has been raised repeatedly from community groups, on which we have agreed to accept amendments and which I really want to stress - as Mr Collaery had the courtesy to acknowledge - and that is the issue of where this tribunal sits, the issue of the relationship of the tribunal with the courts. The Labor Government has been very conscious of the need to avoid this guardianship tribunal being seen as part of the court structure. We consciously amended the legislation from its earlier stage, which had it as a part of the Magistrates Court, to have it sitting separately as a tribunal.
We consciously amended the criteria for appointment to the chair of the tribunal, to avoid the need for a judicial officer and to have the criteria for chairing the tribunal to be either a judicial officer or a person of five years' standing as a practitioner. The legislation as presented made it clear that it certainly was apart from the Magistrates Court; that the person who chairs the tribunal need not be a judicial officer. I said in the introduction speech that it was my intention that the tribunal would not sit as part of the court.
The community groups had concern about some of that and we have agreed that we will make it express in the legislation that it will not be part of the court. So, I would certainly assert from the Government side that we have approached this with good will.
Mr Humphries was having a bit of a grizzle about the pace of reform that we were pressing. Well, I suppose that, in the Liberal Party at the moment, with all the comings and goings, with people coming into the party and leaving the party, or carrying on in the ACT division of the Liberal Party - I like that word "division" - - -
Mr Humphries: I take a point of order, Mr Speaker.
Mr Moore: There is no division; it is all broken up.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .