Page 1945 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 15 June 1994
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The other part of the amendment to clause 6 that I now foreshadow allows a Minister to make an appointment of a person to act in a statutory office for a period not exceeding six months, and I will speak to that at a later date. It seems to me that the compromise reached by the two amendments I shall move should make an appropriate and workable Bill. To clarify for members what those two amendments are, because there was a third amendment distributed at one stage that will not be moved, there is an amendment to clause 4 and also an amendment to clause 6. The amendment to clause 4 simply deals with the Auditor-General and the amendment to clause 6 is the one that has been distributed this morning.
MS FOLLETT (Chief Minister and Treasurer) (11.18): Madam Speaker, could I, first of all, thank members for giving us a little extra time on this Bill. It has been appreciated by the Government and I think it has led to a better piece of legislation as well. So the negotiation and consultation that has gone on has been a very worthwhile procedure.
As I indicated previously, the Government will not be opposing the Bill, although, as members are aware, it is not our preferred course of action. I say in all honesty that we would have preferred matters such as these appointments to be handled by the Executive, as has been the practice in other parliaments. Nevertheless, we fully accept the will of the Assembly in this matter, which quite clearly is to have greater scrutiny of, greater control over, these kinds of appointments. We will not be opposing that course of action.
There is one matter I would like to mention while we are considering the detail stage of the Bill. I caution members about any hint of interrogation of potential candidates or any practice of divulging publicly people's personal circumstances in relation to these kinds of appointments. We have seen a great deal of publicity from the United States of America of this kind of practice. In my view, it is simply not on for this Territory. It is very important, not just to the Government but to the Assembly and to our community as well, that we get people who are prepared to be appointed to the kinds of positions that fall under the jurisdiction of this Bill. It is very important that we also protect people's personal privacy. I believe that people have a right to expect that the Assembly would offer them that respect.
For those reasons, the power that will be vested in this Assembly on the passage of the Bill needs to be handled in a very responsible manner and, to an extent, in an apolitical manner; that is, if the Assembly collectively wishes to take responsibility for some of these matters, in my view it is not open for political point scoring to occur over these appointments. I wanted to make those points to indicate to members that, while we will not be opposing the Bill, I do not regard it as open slather for that kind of activity.
Members will be aware that many of the bodies to which statutory appointments are made play a very important role, and we need to ensure not only that we can get good people to serve on them but also that the bodies themselves are not besmirched by any unseemly kind of debate over proposed appointments. The Government is acting in good faith in accepting the will of the Assembly on this matter, and I would appreciate it if the rest of
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