Page 2219 - Week 08 - Thursday, 10 September 1992
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The Real Property Act contains a small measure to offer that protection. It is a requirement that an instrument lodged on behalf of the commission that has the effect of seizing somebody's property be witnessed. That is all it says; that it be witnessed by somebody else. So some other officer of the department presumably will come in and witness this instrument before it is sent to the registrar's office to be filed in the register. I think, Madam Speaker, that that is not a large thing to ask. This is a small measure to guarantee a certain level of consistency. We should not get into the mentality of saying that government officials are different from the rest of humanity; that they do not have to comply with the same rules. Let us adopt a standard which says that the rules are there for the protection of everybody; let us try to make them standard across all applications of the law and ensure that we do not have exceptions created to those basic rules.
Debate interrupted.
ADJOURNMENT
MADAM SPEAKER: Order! It being 4.30 pm, I propose the question:
That the Assembly do now adjourn.
Mr Berry: I require the question to be put forthwith without debate.
Question resolved in the negative.
LEGAL AID (AMENDMENT) BILL (NO. 2) 1992
Detail Stage
Debate resumed.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (4.31): Madam Speaker, contrary to the rhetoric that we had half an hour or so ago about exchanges between the Opposition and the Government and whether people are ever receptive to suggestions, this amendment is one which is becoming the custom here. Mr Humphries had the courtesy to show me some weeks ago that he thought there was a problem with the Bill. I took the proposal away, as is my practice, asked my departmental officers for advice on the matter and received an advice on the merits of the proposal. I gave a copy of that to Mr Humphries with a note to him saying that we would not be supporting the amendment. I think similar advice has been shown to Independent members. We are not supporting Mr Humphries's amendment; but we are not going to say that the world would change and collapse, and the sky would fall in, if the Assembly were minded to pass it.
The principle that Mr Humphries refers to, that the Government ought to be treated no differently from the citizen in matters of litigation and compliance with the law, is one that we would embrace. Indeed, yesterday I brought into this Assembly a piece of legislation that will regulate the relationships of the Crown
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