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There is an important difference between allegations made in this forum, which are, in many ways, akin to a civil action against an individual, and matters that are brought against a person in a criminal court for breach of the criminal law of the Territory. In the case of a criminal charge against an individual, people have the opportunity of knowing that there has been an assessment of those claims by an independent authority, namely, the Director of Public Prosecutions, before that charge is brought in a court against that individual. So, if I were to be charged with some serious criminal offence, people would have the slight satisfaction of knowing that it was not merely the opinion of an individual in the community that I had done that particular thing but also the opinion of the Director of Public Prosecutions that there was a sufficient case against me to have the matter dealt with properly before a court of the Territory. That is the protection that the community as a whole has in those proceedings. That is the reason that when such a serious criminal matter is brought against a Minister of the Crown that person quite rightly stands aside while the matter is being heard.

But, as I have indicated, proceedings of this nature in the human rights commission are, in many ways, more akin to civil proceedings than they are to criminal proceedings. There is no test of the strength of the claims when a person brings those claims before the tribunal, although ultimately there may be a decision by a court that there is not sufficient basis for those claims to proceed. The point is that when the claims themselves are brought there is no basis on which to say that they should be knocked out because, at that point, they are insufficiently sound to carry the matter through to an adverse finding against an individual. It seems to me very important that we do not assume that a case brought in the human rights commission is akin to a case in a criminal court of the Territory. That is a quite spurious analogy, and it is most important not to allow that to cloud our view about this matter. As I indicated, any person could bring a claim against any Minister in this place with little or no justification and, on the Greens’ test, that would result in that person having to stand aside from the ministry. You could shut down government in the Territory if you wanted to use that device and apply that test.

Mr Speaker, I think there is a more important test to apply. That test entails weighing the nature of the allegation itself. I ask the Greens whether they have actually considered the details of the allegation as they have been indicated in the media, considered the well laid out format in the human rights legislation for resolution of these matters, which is transparent to everybody who wants to look at the way in which those provisions are set out there, and determined what consequences the Government of the Territory would suffer if this sort of standard were to apply to it. Mr Speaker, I think that we have here a quite massive red herring. Those opposite who seek to bring this matter forward to this place do great damage to the principle - a very important legal principle - that in our judicial system a person is innocent until proven guilty. Mr De Domenico is entitled to the application of that principle. He is entitled to benefit from that and to retain his place in the ministry until such time as it is shown that he has committed some act which makes him unfit to hold a place in that ministry. Mr Speaker, that position is far from the case at this time.

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