Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 1 Hansard (20 February) . . Page.. 77 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

Minister had entered into. Mr Speaker, what is clear is that there is a range of applications of these principles around the place. Rather than rely on whichever precedent we can pull out of the air from somewhere else in the country or even overseas, we should be developing guidelines which apply as often as possible to circumstances which may arise.

The performance of official duties often involves some level of personal behaviour, and the two are often quite inseparable. For example, if a Minister, in the course of defending a government decision, were to make a comment about a critic of the government, and in the course of doing so give rise to a possible action for defamation, there is a question as to whether or not the cost of the defamation ought to be indemnified by the Government in the course of that individual Minister's defence of the defamation action. That is a question which I put, in a sense, rhetorically to the Assembly. Granting assistance only when a member or Minister was acting in the course of their duty and not because of any private reason may also mean not providing assistance in circumstances where it would be in the Territory's interests to be protected as a potentially vicariously liable defendant to the proceedings.

For the same reason I think it is not possible to determine whether assistance should be granted before legal representation or legal action was entered into. While it may be possible to say before legal proceedings begin whether or not an action arose out of a Minister's or a member's official duties, it may not be in the course of those proceedings that it is determined that a Minister or member was acting in bad faith or acting unreasonably and should therefore not be granted assistance. Those issues often simply cannot be determined until the outcome of proceedings is arrived at, and in those circumstances guidelines to let members know at the outset what they can expect are of some assistance.

Mr Speaker, because these guidelines would apply equally to members and Ministers, it is important that they be sanctioned by the whole Assembly, not merely by the Government. I propose, therefore, that the Standing Committee on Legal Affairs take on the reference of looking at those guidelines and in due course report to the Assembly on an appropriate framework for such guidelines. The need for those guidelines has been highlighted by recent events and I would ask the committee to consider those issues without reference to those recent events. Whatever rules are established ought to be rules that are fair and equitable in all circumstances, not based on who it is that may have had cause to call on those guidelines or rules, once made, to deliver them assistance in legal proceedings. I commend this motion to the Assembly.

MS FOLLETT (Leader of the Opposition) (4.53): Mr Speaker, I move the following amendment to the motion:

After "provision of", insert "future".

I have moved that, Mr Speaker, to make it very clear that I do not believe that the question of Mr De Domenico's legal representation ought to be a subject for this inquiry by the Standing Committee on Legal Affairs. I have made it very clear in the past that I do not believe it appropriate that the Canberra taxpayer should pay Mr De Domenico's legal fees in that instance. I have put forward some guidelines of my own which

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .