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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1996 Week 9 Hansard (27 August) . . Page.. 2652 ..

MS FOLLETT (continuing):

There is another matter, again that has been reported on before, and that is the question of consultation that has been undertaken under the Statutory Appointments Act. The committee has mentioned previously, I believe, that we would like to see any consultation that has been undertaken in the terms of the Statutory Appointments Act mentioned in the explanatory memorandum for legislation that is brought forward, appointments that are made and so on. I would encourage the Government to make that clear. The Assembly was very deliberate in its actions in introducing the statutory appointments legislation, and we would like to see it implemented.

Mr Humphries: Which you opposed.

MS FOLLETT: Mr Humphries interjects that I opposed it at the time. Indeed, I did; but I bowed to the will of the Assembly in regard to that and have taken that legislation very seriously, in deference to the Assembly's very clear wishes on the matter.

There is another matter, which I will mention briefly, Mr Speaker, and that relates to appointments under the Medical Practitioners Act - a matter which is drawn to attention in the Scrutiny of Bills Committee's report No. 11. There appears to be a significant element of retrospectivity in relation to three appointments to the Medical Board. In fact, those three appointments have been backdated for some months. Mr Speaker, all three of those appointments are, in fact, reappointments of people to the Medical Board, and the question that arises is whether or not the Medical Board operated on a "business as usual" format during the period when those appointments had, in fact, not been made and they have now been backdated to cover that period. If that is the case, and the three reappointed members actually took their place on the board in the absence of an appointment, and if, in fact, there were decisions taken or actions agreed upon during that period and those actions or decisions adversely affected any person, then there is a real question as to the legitimacy of those decisions or those actions in view of the retrospective nature of the appointments.

Mr Speaker, as a general comment, we are seeing appointments being made later and later. I think it is very remiss to have to backdate appointments by several months, or a couple of months, as has occurred on this occasion. So, again, I would urge the Ministers responsible for such appointments and the relevant parts of the administration to be somewhat more scrupulous in getting those actions undertaken before the expiry of appointments. Of course, we will have to wait now on the Attorney-General's advice as to whether the failure to make those Medical Board appointments on time actually does have an impact on the work of the Medical Board. I commend the reports to the Assembly.

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