Page 2319 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 June 1994
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Madam Speaker, this amendment concerns the definition of "autonomous instrumentality". I am proposing the omission of the Legal Aid Commission and the insertion of the Director of Public Prosecutions. I think this is one of the issues on which there could well be some fairly substantial debate. The Government is proposing to amend this clause to remove the Legal Aid Commission simply because we recognise that leaving the Legal Aid Commission in this Bill does not have the support of the majority of this Assembly. I also consider it appropriate for the Government to move this amendment because, as far as I am aware, a similar amendment circulated by the Opposition does not pick up all the consequential amendments that would need to be made.
In relation to the Director of Public Prosecutions, I consider that there is a clear will on the part of all members of the Assembly - Government members included - that the Director of Public Prosecutions operate at all times independently of the Government. The Director of Public Prosecutions has been a public service office always and, as far as I am aware, there has not been a problem with it operating independently under the Commonwealth Public Service Act provisions. Nevertheless, I am aware of the concern expressed by the DPP. We have sought to find a solution that would address the DPP's requirement for that total independence, and also our requirement that the other staff of the DPP be treated no less well than other members of the new ACT Government Service.
The proposal is that the DPP will be an autonomous instrumentality. That will protect the independence of the DPP by allowing him or her to make decisions that will be the responsibility of the Commissioner for Public Administration for the rest of the service. I am particularly pleased to say that retaining the DPP's staff within the wider public service provisions enables them to have far greater mobility and choice in their career options. I have, Madam Speaker, a copy of some correspondence between Ms Webb, the acting secretary of the Department of Public Administration, and Mr Crispin, the Director of Public Prosecutions, which indicates to me that the autonomous instrumentality model is satisfactory to the DPP, although he has raised a couple of minor side issues. Those side issues have been addressed by Ms Webb. This is a compromise that appears to meet everybody's requirements, and I commend the amendment to the Assembly.
MR KAINE (11.34): Madam Speaker, the Liberals oppose this amendment. We favour amendment No. 1 circulated by Mrs Carnell. We would support that amendment in preference to this one. The Government's logic is completely flawed. We have two offices - the Legal Aid Commission, which we agree should not be included here, and the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions, which, equally, we believe should not be included here. To argue that somehow they are different is a peculiar approach to logic. The Legal Aid Commission and the Director of Public Prosecutions each have their own statute under which they operate. Under the Government's proposals the heads of both of those organisations will be given the powers of a chief executive, and I would submit that the staff operating in both of those organisations are in exactly the same position. There is no difference between the staff who are working for the Legal Aid Commission and the staff who are working for the Director of Public Prosecutions, because both are responsible to statutory officers and both, in accordance with the evidence put to me in the select committee hearings, require to be separated from the rest of the public service in terms of the ability of other public servants anywhere to direct them or to require something of them.
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