Page 4761 - Week 15 - Thursday, 21 November 1991
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I have not had the courtesy of being shown the advice. I suspect that, if that is the core of the advice, it is wrong. It is most unfortunate that I have not been given access to that opinion so that I could properly address the issue. This is a very important issue relating to the privileges of this parliament as well, and it is not an issue that has gone down well in the other house. It is not an issue that is at all resolved in the minds of a number of parliamentary officers.
Mr Berry appears to be amused by this debate. It is unfortunate and sad to see the way the Liberal-Labor coalition has worked tonight to exclude the rest of us from being able to argue correctly and properly the propositions that Mr Attorney here has before him from his government law officers. The same government law officers elsewhere in this Bill replicated a repealed section of the parent Act, and it took me to correct that for them.
We are talking about the powers and privileges and responsibilities of this parliament. That is an important role in a democracy. Those of us who have made considerable sacrifices to be in this place, who are not professional politicians and do not aspire to be, see it as most important that the power of the people comes right up through the power of this parliament to call people before it, particularly if there has been a pattern of miscreant activity and concerns, as there was as the time the Federal joint committee wanted to know something from the NCA about a number of issues of considerable concern.
I am talking only about that faint possibility, given that the NCA has learnt some hard lessons, that we could have similar concerns in the future. I would not like to see it; I am not suggesting a standing committee. I do not wish to intrude into the activities, the intelligence, and the rest, of the NCA. I simply want to stress the principle, having seen how these agencies work at home and abroad, that this new parliament, with a predominantly Left Labor Party, should have the guts to give us those powers. They have not. They are gutless.
Amendment negatived.
Clause agreed to.
Remainder of Bill, by leave, taken as a whole, and agreed to.
Bill, as amended, agreed to.
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