Page 1439 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 11 May 1994
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Madam Speaker, the third purpose of this Bill is to amend the Subordinate Laws Act so that where the Assembly actually amends or makes subordinate legislation this legislation may be amended further, or even repealed, by the Executive, as they have a normal power to amend or repeal subordinate legislation. That also is obviously a sensible provision, because you will find from time to time that things need to be updated, and the fact that the Assembly might have spoken on this question should not preclude the Executive from doing that. It would, in theory, throw up the possibility of a Minister overruling a decision of the Assembly because the Assembly makes a change and the Minister just unmakes the change. That could happen, in theory, without the matter coming back to the Assembly. But, of course, we do have the power to do something about that when that regulation is tabled in the Assembly, so it is not a real problem. These are minor changes, and they are supported by the Opposition. Hopefully, they will make our laws operate a little more simply.
MR MOORE (4.33): Madam Speaker, the concern I have with this piece of legislation has to do with the limitation of information that is going to people. I am thinking particularly of the part of the Subordinate Laws (Amendment) Bill concerning notification in the Gazette. Instead of people being able to read the Gazette and see where there have been changes to fees, they will now have to actually seek to find out what those changes are. There is certainly a range of fees that over the years I have looked at in the Gazette and monitored. It seems to me that the Gazette notice has been useful. I note the point that the Attorney-General raised in his introductory speech - that a relatively small number of people actually look at Gazette notices and that they still can get access to the information if they wish.
Madam Speaker, I will be supporting this Bill on this occasion. I will monitor the changes to determine whether, in fact, we have removed something that is important to people. Under the Subordinate Laws Act, where we would be in a position to amend subordinate laws, those fees would not be included because of the amendments that we made last time, and therefore they are not as critical as they might otherwise have been. Madam Speaker, with those few reservations, I think it is important that we have the opportunity to watch what is happening with subordinate legislation, which is a large part of the law-making process of the Territory. Having expressed those few reservations, Madam Speaker, I point out that I will be supporting the Bill.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General and Minister for Health) (4.35), in reply: I thank members for their support, although the issue of principle that Mr Humphries adverted to and that Mr Moore went into in some greater detail is one that I think should be addressed. We are saying that it is illogical that an Act of this Assembly - by which we can impose all sorts of rights and obligations, taxes or, if we so choose, retrospective taxes, although we would rarely do that - be notified by a simple line "An Act has been passed"; whereas the procedure to date has been that a subordinate instrument is published in full in the Gazette. That is an illogical way to proceed, and Mr Humphries agrees with that. But Mr Moore says that that perhaps raises a problem in that the public will not be as well informed as it should be.
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