Page 4247 - Week 14 - Thursday, 24 October 1991
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I think anyone who has any moderate interest in civil liberties today would take this step. It will provide a signal. It is most unlikely that we will have any committee - we are rising in a matter of sitting days - before next year, if ever; but here is a provision which has been pressed by parliamentarians on the hill and it is supported by the head of the NCA. You can be overcautious sometimes, I submit to members. This is not doing anything imprudent. No-one is going to subpoena and call members of the NCA before the Assembly.
I want to stress one thing: Members should not forget that we cannot pass legislation in this Assembly which is inconsistent with Federal legislation, in effect. The Federal legislation - I could provide, with a moment's grace, the provision in the governing legislation - allows the Commonwealth to pass legislation that can override ours and render ours inconsistent. There is, of course, that safety measure, if something got out of control and we had some difficulties with a committee of this Assembly out of control. It is well within the purview of the Commonwealth anyway, so let us not kid ourselves.
Let us, as a young, vibrant legislature, take a decisive step here. I have given you every credible reason why we should, particularly the comments of other parliamentarians, extremely experienced ones like Senator Crichton-Browne. I can also quote Senator Vanstone here. The fact is that there is no reason why you cannot do this. It provides scope for us to have better control of our destiny, as Mr Moore acknowledged, and it does not create any risks.
MR STEFANIAK (11.58): In relation to this, the Liberal Party is very mindful of the points raised by Mr Collaery and Mr Connolly. Mr Connolly is putting what appears to us to be a quite sensible conservative view as to what is happening nationally and federally. It would have been nice if he could have anticipated Mr Collaery's amendment and told us of what is happening federally and at State level. In this instance I realise, because the amendment came in this morning, that that might have been impossible. For future reference, if there is any Bill before this house which has Federal ramifications and ramifications for other States because of negotiations between the States, I think it would certainly help if members were aware of any likely problems which would affect the Assembly's deliberations.
Mr Collaery also brings up a point in his amendment of a substantial role in right of this Assembly and, indeed, other parliaments. His suggestion, indeed, has a lot of merit. Both suggestions have a lot of merit. I appreciate that the situation between the States and the Commonwealth as to where this proposal goes may not be resolved in the next three weeks. As Mr Connolly himself says, we hope never to have a National Crime Authority investigation in Canberra, so I do not think another three weeks is really going to affect the debate greatly.
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