Page 2150 - Week 07 - Thursday, 16 June 1994
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On the question that the Chief Minister raised about what she called the silly ruling of the New South Wales Supreme Court, I should make it clear that that ruling, however silly, was upheld by the New South Wales Court of Appeal, and was further upheld, in a sense, by a judge of the High Court of Australia by refusing to give special leave for the appeal to go to the High Court. It is not as if one judge has gone haywire, has had a bad day or something and has made a bizarre decision. It is a decision which, if you examine the words used on the scratch lottery cards, has some credibility. The words, as I understand them, were, "Match three numbers". If you have two pairs of three numbers you have matched three numbers. You can see the argument that was put forward and it has some credibility, so I do not think it is entirely without merit. I accept that it is not the understanding of most people who play scratch lotteries, indeed probably almost all of them; but it certainly is not an entirely unsustainable argument.
A point was raised by Mr Moore about announcements that the Government is going to do something in the future and will make the date retrospective to the date on which they make their announcement in a press release. That is often called legislation by press release and is a practice that is greatly frowned upon by all Australian governments, as I understand it, in this day and age. I understand that a couple of years ago some changes were foreshadowed in a press release, were subsequently announced in a Federal budget, and in fact were struck down by the High Court, I think on the basis that there was a discrepancy, or a potential discrepancy, between what was in the budget and what was in the press release.
The point about the danger of this problem is that you cannot work out from a press release, with the language that politicians or their minders use in a press release, precisely what the law itself is going to say when that law is enacted. It is extremely dangerous to expect people to understand their rights from a press release which can be found in only certain places, and which, in fact, gets interpreted in the media, as we know, sometimes in a quite distorted fashion before the average citizen in the street works out what the situation is. It is quite inappropriate to rely on that, and the circumstances where that is used are very limited in the Australian context, if used at all in this day and age.
Madam Speaker, this amendment is a sensible one to protect the rights of a person who has already commenced an action in the court. Contrary to what the Chief Minister said, when the New South Wales Government made its announcement the Burgin case had not been fully resolved. It had yet to go to at least the High Court, and I think also the Court of Appeal.
Ms Follett: There had been a judgment on it.
MR HUMPHRIES: Certainly, at least the High Court. There had been a judgment, yes; but it was still being appealed. It was still being fought over. The matter was not yet resolved. I think in those circumstances we are dealing with exactly the same situation here. The matter before the ACT Supreme Court has not been resolved, and it should be resolved by the court and not by this parliament.
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