Page 4755 - Week 15 - Thursday, 21 November 1991
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Whether we ever formed a select committee to look into the activities and operations of the NCA in a non-operational sense is another thing, but the fact that it is there is a caution for the authority itself. If it wanted to come into this Territory and conduct inquiries, then it would be aware that there is a parliament in this Territory that would probably not put up with any excesses of power.
There is a parliament in this Territory which, though young, has established itself in law reform, in law-making, that could well be right up with the other parliaments in the British Commonwealth. We have done that in a short time and we have had fewer settlement problems than they did in Sydney with their Rum Rebellion and the rest of the putsches that afflicted the parliamentary process there in the early days. Certainly, we have none of what afflicted the Queensland Parliament right up until modern times, as I am sure Mr Wood appreciates, being a former member of that parliament.
This is a strong parliament. This parliament will grow and get better after the next election, I am sure. I seriously commend to the Liberal Party, with its liberal-democratic instincts - in the sense that it supports a free and confident nation, a liberal nation - that we provide this power to the Assembly. You are not doing anything to risk the operations of the National Crime Authority. You are going to hear, as you have probably heard already backstage, some platitudinous comments that have come out of certain government law advisers. I know their nature and genre from the direction from which they come on this issue.
I believe that the amendments I seek will resolve the serious questions that arose in the Federal Parliament, where experienced parliamentary officers indicated a very strong disagreement with the opinions provided to that parliament by both the Federal Attorney and the Solicitor-General. I believe that members should understand that the parliamentary powers and privileges of this Assembly are like those in other Westminster parliaments - unconstrained, save by the laws establishing them and the conventions applying.
Why, above all, should a National Crime Authority come in and find itself above parliamentary purview. If you are going to have a major National Crime Authority reference in the Territory - and I can tell you that you nearly had one when I was Attorney - we are going to foot the bill. We pay for it, under our arrangement. Why cannot a committee - not an estimates committee; it may be too broad - find out the general operating guidelines, the general practices, the general investigative craft of the National Crime Authority, by asking general questions, not to do with any current inquiry?
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