Page 772 - Week 03 - Wednesday, 13 April 1994
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Mr Moore was referring to boards, but the definition in the Bill at the moment refers to "statutory office", meaning "an office or position (whether as a member of a Territory authority or otherwise) established by or under an Act". That, in our view, is so broad as to catch everything from a Supreme Court judge down to a public servant at the ASO1 level who may hold the statutory appointment of dog collector or litter inspector. So there are some substantial policy questions. Members of the Assembly may today vote in principle and say, "Yes, we think the legislature should have the right to scrutinise appointments to the Executive". We say that that is a bad principle. It is an Americanisation. It is a departure from the Westminster traditions that our system of government is based on where the buck stops at the Minister's desk. We have just had a demonstration of that, so I cannot see why you are wanting to depart from those principles. If you do want to depart from those principles you really need to think very carefully about where we draw the line.
I am not in a position today to propose amendments that will fix the problem, because I do not know what the problem is. I do not know what the will of the Assembly is. Does the Assembly want to hold it to Mr Moore's original proposal, which we might in shorthand refer to as the boards, and see whether it works - we would suggest that it probably will not - and how it works, and if it works maybe take it further? Does the Assembly want to cover the boards plus secretaries of departments, but not the litter collector or the myriad of public servants from the lowest level through to very senior SES officers who, as well as being public servants and in most cases winning positions through an ordinary public service merit promotion process, happen to have a statutory appointment?
An example of that is the Commissioner for Consumer Affairs. It is a ministerial appointment. I appoint to the position of Commissioner for Consumer Affairs. That position was recently upgraded - an ordinary bureaucratic process - and there was a merit selection process that the applicant for that position went through before being confirmed. In a circumstance like that there is an ordinary public service merit selection process, and the norm at the end of the day is that the Minister just signs the piece of paper to appoint the successful applicant to that statutory office. Does the Assembly want to catch those in its net? I suspect that members may say no, they do not; but members would certainly acknowledge that it is a hard policy issue that needs to be thought about.
Today we will vote on the in-principle stage, which the Government significantly opposes as this is a dangerous departure from Australian parliamentary traditions. I can assure members opposite that my Labor colleagues in opposition throughout Australia will be pressing Liberal governments perhaps to follow your lead on this, and we will be interested in the results. We say that it is a bad Bill in principle, but if the Assembly is determined to pass it, which I think it is, at least let us take a deep breath and sort out these policy issues. I will write to members setting out what we see as the policy problems and perhaps a range of alternative positions and where lines could sensibly be drawn, and we may be able at some stage in the coming weeks to sit around the table and come up with a sensible outcome.
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