Page 4743 - Week 15 - Thursday, 21 November 1991
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Heritage Objects Bill 1991 to be contrary to law may apply for review of that decision, failure or conduct. This Bill will, in effect, remove the requirement that a person must be aggrieved by the decision, failure or conduct before that person is entitled to seek judicial review of matters arising under the new legislation.
I am absolutely delighted to see this Bill coming forward. It widens standing to apply for review. One must remember in all this that the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act does not provide scope, in its textual context, for merit review. As the decisions have evolved under that legislation in its parent Federal form, the courts have generally construed the applications before them on the grounds of unreasonableness, errors of law, or any other of the enumerated heads, as requiring that a question of law be resolved. At the moment, this legislation does not deal with merit review.
The doctrine of being affected has been well developed in the Federal Court in particular. An example of a wide construction was a finding by Mr Justice Wilcox, in the Hail Mary case, that clergymen could be affected by a film that portrayed a religious sentiment in a particular way. He said that they could be affected at large by a film and he gave them standing. We then go down to the narrow construction that has been more traditionally placed on it by Mr Justice Neaves in our court here and in the Federal Court, where His Honour has looked generally quite textually to the law, and I say that with great respect.
The passage of this Bill will mean that someone living at the end of Canberra, who believes that legal processes have not been properly fulfilled, can be joined in an action to review that decision. That will widen the scope for planning activists who see an error of law that needs to be approached and dealt with. I stress that it will not produce a new source of merit review.
I commend the Bill to the house. It is the outcome of the time I was in the Attorney's job and it is the outcome of lobbying I undertook within the Alliance Government to ensure that this legislation put us at the forefront in Australia in relation to locus standi.
MR MOORE (10.11): Mr Speaker, the introduction of this Bill at this stage is ironic for its inconsistency with what has gone on tonight. I congratulate the Attorney-General and the Government for introducing it and for widening the ability of people to carry out appeals. This form of appeal is being opened within the courts - a difficult area to access. For those of us who do not have legal training, it is a formidable exercise to go into a court; but at least here, appropriately, access is being broadened. Contrast that with the earlier debate, where there was an opportunity to broaden appeals so that ordinary people could have access, and look at the view of
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