Page 5270 - Week 16 - Thursday, 28 November 1991
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MR STEVENSON: What the Labor members would have us agree with is that a natural person is not entitled to be represented at a conference by another person. It says what it says. It means what it says. No amount of denying by anybody else will ever remove the fact that your right to legal representation is removed under this Bill.
There is a fascinating irony in the next clause, which discriminates against someone who is a natural person over a body of persons, if you like, whether incorporated or unincorporated. It would not be unlikely that an incorporated body, particularly a large one, would have a legal representative on its staff. If that is the case, then that body of persons, as it says here, can be represented by "a member, officer or employee of the body".
What that means in practical terms is this: If you have a big company and you have a solicitor on the books, or someone who can handle themselves well on behalf of the company, then you can be represented by that person because they work for the company. The individual has no such right to pick or select the sort of person who represents them.
After subclause 77(4), I would include a new subclause (5), to read:
Subject to subsection 66(2), nothing in this section prohibits the appointment without leave of the Commissioner of -
(a) a representative to assist a person who suffers an impairment whether the impairment is such as to significantly diminish a person's ability to communicate effectively, or is likely to cause a bias against a person, or places the person under unreasonable stress; ...
Once again, why do we have the Labor members not allowing someone who may have an impairment to be represented? Where is the logic of that? When someone has an impairment, when someone does not have the same capability of representation as some other people, why would you not allow them the right to do that? I welcome the opportunity to hear, when I finish what I am saying.
Paragraph (b) of that proposed subclause says:
(b) a legal representative.
I think the vast majority of people in Canberra, if they knew that they were being denied a legal representative when compelled to go before a commissioner who has powers that no court in Australia has, would be most concerned indeed.
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