Page 2131 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 9 September 1992
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SCRUTINY OF BILLS AND SUBORDINATE LEGISLATION -
STANDING COMMITTEE
Reports and Statement
MRS GRASSBY: I present reports Nos 11 and 12 of 1992 of the Standing Committee on Scrutiny of Bills and Subordinate Legislation, and I seek leave to make a brief statement on the reports.
Leave granted.
MRS GRASSBY: Report No. 11, which I have just presented, was circulated to members on 26 August 1992 pursuant to the committee's resolution of appointment. Report No. 12 contains the committee's comments on two Bills and eight pieces of subordinate legislation. I commend the reports to the Assembly.
CROWN PROCEEDINGS BILL 1992
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (4.07): Madam Speaker, I present the Crown Proceedings Bill 1992.
Title read by Acting Clerk.
MR CONNOLLY: I move:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
Madam Speaker, this Bill is based on a model Bill developed by the Solicitors-General of the States and Territories and agreed to by the Standing Committee of Attorneys-General. Its purpose is to produce, as far as possible, uniform, comprehensive and reasonable legislation throughout the States and Territories on the topic of suing the Crown.
Madam Speaker, under the common law and under statute law there is no automatic right to sue the Crown or the government. Historically the courts were the King's courts. Therefore, to sue the Crown would be for the King to sit in judgment of himself. Later the British courts developed a maxim that the King could do no wrong. Over the centuries the immunities and privileges of the Crown have been narrowed in their scope by legislation. Today in Australia every State and Territory has legislation that allows citizens to sue the Crown of that particular State or Territory. In the ACT the relevant legislation is the Crown Suits Act of 1989, although in the States this only ranges back to law reform in the 1930s and 1940s. However, because Australia is a federation, the Crown takes many different forms. There is a Crown in right of the ACT, a Crown in right of New South Wales, and indeed a Crown in right of all other States and the Northern Territory, and of course the Commonwealth.
This raises a difficult constitutional issue. What happens when you want to sue the Crown of a State for something it may have done in the ACT? For instance, suppose that the Western Australian Government has a tourist bureau which is a Crown agency. If it sets up operations in the ACT, one Crown is operating
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