Page 1946 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 15 June 1994
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the Assembly members would similarly act in good faith and for the greater good of the appointments that are made rather than for the greater good of any particular political body. Madam Speaker, I appreciate the amendments Mr Moore will be moving. I believe that they clarify the matter and specify more closely which appointments the Assembly will be scrutinising. For that reason, we also will be supporting Mr Moore's amendments to the Bill.
MR HUMPHRIES (11.22): Madam Speaker, I also indicate, as I have before, my party's support for the Bill. I foreshadow our support for the amendments which, as Mr Moore indicated, have been worked out by some process of discussion between the parties in this place. I welcome also, in a sense, the change of tone that has come from the Government on the important question of the nature of the scrutiny that will take place pursuant to the powers conferred on Assembly committees by this Bill. It was Mr Connolly's contention originally that this process would inevitably lead to a US-style hearing fiasco, with people calling others names and all sorts of things being dragged up in a public fashion. Mr Connolly said that that was the inevitable result of this process.
The Chief Minister seems to indicate that there is a hope at least by the Government that that would be avoided and that we can conduct this in an apolitical - I think that is her word - and orderly fashion where we treat with respect the information that is put before committees by our potential appointees. I sincerely hope that that is the case as well. I repeat my assertion that my party does not see this as the opening to an American-style hearings process. This is a process that we see having positive outcomes for the Territory, not just because of the extra scrutiny it provides to members of the Assembly but also because of the constraint it puts on the hands of government.
We do not expect partisan behaviour on these committees because we expect the process of making appointments to be less political than it has been in the past. My party believes that there have been inappropriate appointments in the past, particularly by the present Government. We stand by those assertions. I mentioned on the last occasion at least three appointments we considered to have been inappropriate, where persons were appointed primarily because of their political connections rather than because of their particular talents or credentials. We hope that this process will begin to avoid that kind of appointment being made in the future. We do not expect to have to go through a tawdry kind of attack on nominees because we do not expect nominations of the kind we have seen in the past being made in the future.
Mr Connolly: But, other than that, it will be open slather on anybody you think you can get a bit of a smear on. Mr Katter seems to be coming to the surface here.
MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Connolly persists in pointing the finger on this matter. I am not responsible for Mr Katter or Senator Chapman. I think we have indicated pretty clearly that we take a responsible approach to these sorts of matters in this place. We have indicated that we are prepared to take this matter as an innovation in Australian government and deal with it responsibly and act according to those new responsibilities.
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