Page 1077 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 23 June 1992
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MR HUMPHRIES: Perhaps the Attorney-General has a different view about this, but it seems to me appropriate that somebody in here actually reads the Queensland legislation to make sure that it really is what the ACT wishes to incorporate by reference into its own statute books. The Chief Minister nods her head. Perhaps she has done that. Perhaps her Attorney has done that. But members outside the Government, whether in the Opposition or on the Independent crossbenches, I can guarantee you, have not done so. We are going to be asked to pass those three Bills into law in this place in a matter of minutes. I think that is scandalous.
Mr Berry: What did you do over the weekend?
MR HUMPHRIES: I had other legislation to read through over the weekend, Mr Berry. I had plenty to do over the weekend. I had other Bills to look through. Nobody, short of Superman, could have gone through in a weekend all the Bills that were introduced by your Government into this Assembly last time. Even if we could, simply reading legislation is not enough to satisfy us, any more than it should be enough to satisfy you, that it is good enough to be passed by this parliament. We have a responsibility to the people of the ACT to make sure that what we are doing in this place is in accordance both with their wishes and with their interests. There is no way that what we are doing in this Assembly this week, putting legislation through with such scandalous speed, can possibly meet that criterion.
Mr Berry laughs and shakes his head; "Ha, ha, ha; we do not really need to worry about things like reading Bills carefully and talking to people in the community. We have done all the consultation we need to do about these Bills". The fact is, Madam Speaker, that those opposite have not done their consultation. They were caught out last week. They are probably going to be caught out again this week. I have no doubt that we will be back in this place some time in the next sitting, or perhaps early next year, considering amendment Bills because you have botched it; you have rushed legislation and you have botched it. That is not a handsome record. Mark my words, we will be coming back to look at one of these pieces of legislation at some time in the next 12 months because you have not got it right.
Madam Speaker, there is a serious question at stake here. It is not just a question of how much time members have to sit down and read legislation when they go home at night after a day in this parliament. That is not the real issue. The real issue, I would suggest, is the question of balancing the respective powers and privileges of different arms of government, one with the other. Mr Justice McGarvie published an article in a recent edition of Quadrant which canvasses this very important issue. He referred to a recent review of the Victorian Parliament which was prepared by its presiding officers - the President of the upper house and the Speaker of the lower house. I want to quote some of the conclusions that that particular parliament reached. I concede that it is one of the few parliaments in this country which have a majority government, but I will come back to that point in a moment. I quote:
These arms of government are not static in relation to one another, and commentators on constitutional development frequently discuss the relative movement of one arm with relation to another. The three arms are in fact in a dynamic tension with one another, and the workings of the system can be seriously jeopardised if one arm achieves total dominance over the others.
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