Page 6063 - Week 18 - Thursday, 12 December 1991
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The question remains: Why should a person not be able to look at the legislation and see therein the conditions that he or she must satisfy in order to be able to obtain a licence to operate his or her business - his or her livelihood? I think that those provisions are iniquitous and should be removed. If the Government feels that there is some particular test that should be set out to prevent people from obtaining licences if they are shady characters, or undesirable people to be handling CFCs, then it should clearly articulate those conditions and put them in the legislation - or at least in regulations under the legislation.
Mr Jensen interjected to make reference to subclause 14(2). I have not proposed to remove the reference to a fit and proper person there, because in those circumstances it actually widens the conditions under which a person might get a licence. Where a person, in fact, has a conviction and is therefore ineligible under subclause 14(1) to get a licence, that person can, in fact, go to the authority and say, "I know that I have a conviction, but I think this conviction is of such a kind that I ought still to be able to have a chance of working in this industry. Please give me a licence, notwithstanding my conviction, because these are the circumstances under which I incurred that conviction".
In those circumstances, I think it is fair that there should be a capacity for leniency, a capacity for a person who, on the face of it, does not have compliance with the provisions to go one step further and say, "Please give me an exemption on this basis". There it is fair to give a public servant a discretion. It expands the rights of a citizen in those circumstances. But, in subclause 14(1) and in paragraph 14(4)(f), it contracts those rights. Therefore, it ought to be removed.
MR WOOD (Minister for Education and the Arts and Minister for the Environment, Land and Planning) (5.05): The Government opposes these amendments. I have indicated to Mr Humphries the frequent wide-ranging use of that term, "fit and proper person". There is nothing unusual about it. It is a useful discretionary provision that adds to the requirements, the criteria, before, in this case, someone is issued with a licence. Let me tell you - and I am sure you know it - that it is specific to these requirements, to the criteria; it is not to be taken as a broad definition. A person could be entirely unfit in many aspects of his or her life but still be a fit and proper person under the terms of this Bill.
It is not a look at the whole of a person's life. It is not someone sitting in judgment on how someone has carried on. With the ability given to us with the computer, I can tell you that the phrase "fit and proper" appears on 70 occasions in ACT legislation.
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