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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 1 Hansard (19 February) . . Page.. 100 ..

MR MOORE (11:43): Indeed, it is an apt opportunity to echo the thoughts of Mr Osborne. People looking at the notice paper and the legislation that we have dealt with over the last few years may well say, "What does Mr Moore have to complain about? He has done quite well". I think it is very important for all members to understand that this is in no way an attack on parliamentary counsel. All of us who deal with parliamentary counsel know the hard work and effort that these people put in and the sorts of outputs we get. Mr Speaker, when I came into this Assembly I had the advantage that I had determined what I would be doing and had already prepared a whole series of drafting instructions for pieces of legislation. Even before the Government had put its legislation to parliamentary counsel, I had given a range of instructions. That may explain to members why I was able to table legislation.

Mr Osborne raises a very important question about the extent to which parliamentary counsel should be available to non-Government members. Mr Osborne said that we have reached a point at which we need to consider drafting our own legislation. The legislation that I tabled only a few minutes ago, the Gaming Machine (Amendment) Bill, was privately drafted. The Australian Hotels Association, knowing that the legislation would benefit their members, offered to have that professionally drafted for me. I accepted that. The original draft was then passed by parliamentary counsel, who were gracious enough to look at it and liaise very closely with my office. Eventually, we came up with the piece of legislation that was tabled. Members would notice that it does not have the job number and so forth that we would normally associate with parliamentary counsel. It was privately drafted and then redrafted with a number of very fair comments that were made by parliamentary counsel.

Mr Speaker, it seems to me that Mr Osborne raises with you an issue about your responsibility to ensure that members have the opportunity to have legislation drafted. I think it is a very important responsibility for you to consider. It is also important to consider that Mr Humphries says, "We have not been able to get the legislation drafted because we have not had the number of parliamentary counsel that ought to be employed". Under those circumstances, quite clearly Mr Humphries has been saving money. He ought to transfer that money across to the Legislative Assembly - to your budget, Mr Speaker - to allow some members to have their legislation drafted privately. It can be done. I recently had legislation drafted privately on my behalf. This is a matter for us to consider.

However, there are some significant disadvantages to this method. One of the big advantages of having it done by parliamentary counsel is consistency of legislation. It is not a matter of just looking at the individual piece of legislation. Parliamentary counsel check whether Bills might have an impact on a whole range of other legislation. Parliamentary counsel also write back to us regularly and suggest that there may be problems in a whole range of matters such as consistency with previous legislation, including the self-government Act. They give all sorts of legal advice to members. Not through any fault of their own but rather through the fault of the Government, there is now an inadequate drafting capacity for non-Government members of the Assembly.

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