Page 2792 - Week 09 - Thursday, 26 August 1993
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Arguably, Madam Speaker, a place as small as the ACT does not need a separate office and a separate function and a separate enactment for each of these public roles. For that reason, Madam Speaker, this legislation quite appropriately seeks to do away with that variety of titles and to create a single position, that of Registrar-General. The Registrar-General Bill 1993 creates that position and accords to it the usual sorts of powers for a position of that kind, the capacity for the Minister to make acting appointments, a definition of the powers and functions of that office and the liability of the Registrar-General and officers under him or her.
This is important to make sure that there is a reduction in the duplication which occurs in the Territory in the way of offices and places one has to go to to get things done. It is certainly simpler and easier to understand than the present arrangements. Although the explanatory memorandum does not make reference to this, it may even result in some cost savings to the Territory as we reach a position where these sorts of additional letterheads and so on do not have to be printed in future. These two Bills clearly provide for a sensible strategy, a sensible scheme, for reducing that duplication, and my party supports them.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (4.35), in reply: I thank Mr Humphries for his support for this legislation. It is, as he said, a fairly straightforward piece of minor tidying up which may result in some minor cost saving in the future. The legislation has given rise to a fascinating little point that I have been trying to get the answer to in the last half-hour or so, which Mr Humphries raised with me.
I have circulated to members some amendments to be moved to the Registrar-General (Consequential Provisions) Bill which correct an error which, this time, I am sure was picked up by the Scrutiny of Bills Committee. There was reference to the old Adoption of Children Act, and that should be a reference to the Adoption Act of 1993. Also, there was reference to the Adoption of Children Regulations, which should in fact be a reference to the Adoption Regulations.
Mr Humphries said to me, "Is it not a bit unusual that we are, by an enactment, amending a regulation?". We looked into that matter, and there have been a number of precedents where that has occurred in this Assembly, where a Bill doing something like this Bill - a consequential provisions Bill which does the tidying up of other legislation as a result of a major change - goes through and tidies up the Acts affected and also tidies up regulations affected. It raised the very interesting point of what is the source of power for the Assembly passing an amendment to a regulation, because the general position is that the regulations are disallowable. They are brought into this Assembly and they may be disallowed; but the general opinion would have been that they are not amendable. While we can have private members Bills, no-one has ever heard of such a thing as a private members regulation.
When I sought the advice of our Chief Parliamentary Counsel, Mr Hunt, QC, he advised me that there are a number of precedents for this occurring not only in this place but also at the Commonwealth level and in some other States. The source of power for a parliament to amend a regulation under a Bill goes back to the first principle that the parliament is superior to the subordinate law-making body, the Executive, and therefore the parliament has authority to amend a regulation. It has been a custom and practice to do this in this type of
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .