Page 4739 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 7 December 1994
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On page 3 of the report the Electors Initiative and Referendum Bill that I introduced is mentioned. A number of dot points, which it suggested were major problems with the Bill, were listed. Looking at them, I was surprised that it did not say, "There is a problem, because it was not printed on recycled paper and the ink was not dark enough". They tried everything that they could. First of all, the report said that the Bill was poorly drafted. The report did not give any examples that I could see. It said that the Bill "omits important details and lacks clarity". This is a report that talks about "political sensitivity" and "concomitant effect on popularity at the polling booth". How many people know what concomitant means? The EIR Bill is supposed to lack clarity!
The report further states that the Bill has "unacceptably low trigger mechanisms". According to whom? That is a political statement; that is a political statement that you usually get from politicians. Politicians think that anything that can be easily achieved is too low for people to have a say on; but not the people, because the vast majority of people support a reasonable trigger mechanism. In my Bill it is just under 3 per cent and just under 6 per cent when you look at a minimum of 5,000 and 10,000 signatures.
The report goes on to say that the Bill "provides for frequent referendums, which would blow out the cost of introducing CIR". Heavens above! It would provide for frequent referendums. If you allow a referendum to be held only at election time - I do not need to tell politicians this; they might get the idea themselves - they will wait until just after the election and then move everything that the people will not like; knowing full well that they cannot introduce anything for another three years. Introduce a referendum to be held in three years' time, and, by that time, the schools will be knocked down; the hospital will be closed; the bridge will be built; et cetera. This is put up as a problem. By whom? By politicians; not by the people.
The report also says that the Bill "does not recognise that, under present circumstances, a referendum result cannot be binding on the Assembly". Let us turn to the Attorney-General's Department's legal opinion that we have heard so much about. I suggest that people actually read it, because they have not. They are just saying, "Let us say that this is a problem. Let us talk about abdicating responsibility and say that we cannot do that. There is a quote that says that you cannot do that. That is all there is to it. The EIR Bill is not any good".
I could quote from the report by the Hon. Mr Justice David Malcolm, the Chief Justice of Western Australia, in his paper "The Limitations, if any, on the Powers of Parliament to Delegate the Power to Legislate". There are many examples that indicate that it could be done. But I do not need to quote from that report because the matter is covered clearly and succinctly in the Deputy Law Officer's letter of 3 November 1994. That letter is an attachment to the select committee's report. It says, on page 42 of the report, and this might be news to people:
The Assembly, like other Westminster style parliaments, is prevented from abdicating or abrogating its law-making function.
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