Page 5234 - Week 16 - Thursday, 28 November 1991
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
he is doing, even though most of the members obviously object to the way he is doing it. The point is that I am here to control the debate according to the standing orders. I take Mr Collaery's point, and Mr Connolly's, that in fact Mr Stevenson is doing this in a manner to aggravate every member of this Assembly; but he still has the right to do that. Intemperate language from other members does not help. I would overrule any action at this time. But at the same time, Mr Wood, I would ask you to withdraw your last statement about honesty.
Mr Wood: Yes, sure; I will withdraw it.
MR SPEAKER: Thank you, and I would ask you to stand next time you do that.
MR STEVENSON: I have moved to delete the word "not" from paragraph 75(3)(c), which says that the commissioner is not bound by the rules of evidence in conducting an investigation.
Mr Connolly: Just like the Administrative Appeals Tribunal and virtually every other similar body.
MR STEVENSON: Mr Connolly says that it is just like the Administrative Appeals Tribunal. It is true that there have been many tribunals set up in Australia that are not bound by the rules of evidence.
Mr Connolly: But they must observe the principles of natural justice, or they are overturned by appellate process.
MR STEVENSON: Mr Connolly says, "They must observe the principles of natural justice". A famous painting hangs in the National Gallery in London. It shows the interior of an Elizabethan room with Roundheads seated around an eight- to ten-year-old boy. Obviously, the boy was a royalist or a loyalist, by his ringlets. This was the Star Chamber. This is what happened under Cromwell, in the so-called Lord Protector's reign around about the 1630s.
Anyone who was a royalist or a loyalist whom the puritans did not like could be hauled before a tribunal. You had no rights to natural justice, notwithstanding that one of Cromwell's men could have said that this was natural justice. The caption on this painting was addressed to the little boy - "When did you last see your father?". This is the sort of thing that could happen in a Star Chamber. A Star Chamber is where you have no rights. A Star Chamber is largely where the mind of the tribune, the commissioner, or whatever you call the person in charge, has largely already been made up.
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .