Page 5587 - Week 17 - Wednesday, 4 December 1991
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MR MOORE: The new amendment in my name, in the scrawly handwriting, has just been circulated. I move:
Page 59, line 7, subclause (1), omit "that would be directly affected by", substitute "in".
MR COLLAERY (6.06): We would be interested in hearing from the Minister how he interprets the word "interest". It has been narrowed by the lawyers over the years, and often it has been narrowed in environment concepts to bring it back to direct effect. Although I accept the bona fides of the Minister on this matter, I think the extrinsic record has to show the intention of the legislature.
I know what Mr Moore intends. He intends that people with a reasonable broad interest in the proposal should be consulted. There is a double-header there. The Minister can filter out by finding reasonable grounds. Well, we cannot do much about that. Secondly, some legalistic bureaucrat can suggest a standard for an interest. That interest could range as wide as one of the authorities on that, which was the Hail Mary case, where Mr Justice Wilcox said that clergymen had an interest in the showing of a film that purportedly expressed a blasphemy. That is one of the wider grounds in judicial review. There are very narrow interpretations too, and courts vary on it.
I think it will be an aid to us to understand what the Minister wants to tell the Assembly about what the interest is. I just pose an example: Would the interest embrace the legitimate concerns of a conservation council?
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (6.08): It is strange that a lawyer is concerned about legalistic bureaucrats.
Mr Collaery: This is a lawyer who lost thousands of dollars at Rocky Knoll. I have every interest in it.
MR WOOD: I think you should attend to lawyers, Mr Collaery. The word "interest" means that. I would take the ordinary meaning of the word; that "interest" means someone who has an interest. If you are aware of proposals for development at West Belconnen, a person who has an interest is the sort of person who turned up at a meeting I went to last night.
Amendment agreed to.
Clause, as amended, agreed to.
Clauses 128 to 139, by leave, taken together, and agreed to.
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