Page 566 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 12 April 1994
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a royal commission - the ability to summons witnesses, the requirements to put people on oath, the protections and the seriousness of a royal commission - but that was somewhat less formal than a royal commission; that did not require, for example, the appointment of a judicial officer to conduct it, something which has come to be seen as a common feature of a royal commission in Australia.
The Inquiries Act is a very serious piece of legislation. The decision to refer a matter to an inquiry is a serious decision not taken lightly and should be observed as such by members of this Assembly. I say to Independent members that you should look very closely at parliamentary practice in Australia, at what parliaments do when matters go to facts and individual conduct. Ms Follett tabled the terms of that board of inquiry in the house today. I imagine that in the negotiations around this matter members have seen those terms of reference. They clearly go to the facts surrounding this whole matter. Opposition members have been waving around their very impressive looking stage prop of the VITAB affair - a thick manila folder over there. Clearly there are hundreds and hundreds of pages of facts in that.
There are a lot of facts that are in contention. We heard some very sinister sounding material about breaches of the law and failure to table directions. Mr Berry will very rapidly resolve that matter. You are quite wrong on that. You assert a fact which you say shows that Mr Berry misled this house. Mr Berry will produce documents and facts this afternoon in his factual defence which we say show that what you say is a nonsense, and it is in a sense up to the Independents to form a judgment on that. I say to the Independents that this is a matter that goes to facts; it is a matter that goes to the state of Mr Berry's knowledge as to particular matters at particular times; it is a matter that goes to Mr Berry's involvement in this VITAB agreement process. Clearly, on your allegations, this is what this goes to; and the fact that that matter is clearly before a board of inquiry indicates that we should, as the Chief Minister urged, wait until the verdict is brought in before we pass sentence.
Madam Speaker, I believe that it would have been quite proper for me to rise at an early stage in this debate and draw your attention to the sub judice convention and the way parliaments in Australia have applied that to royal commissions. The Government has consciously not done that. We did not wish to be accused of trying to stifle debate on this, because then that would be seen as another sinister act that the Government was engaging in. Far from stifling debate, far from trying to stifle facts, we have appointed Professor Dennis Pearce, a former Commonwealth Ombudsman, a person of very high repute - - -
Mr De Domenico: But you did it kicking and screaming, for heaven's sake. You did not want to do it; you had to be forced to do it.
Mr Humphries: You had to be forced to do this inquiry.
MADAM SPEAKER: Order!
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