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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 2 Hansard (25 February) . . Page.. 382 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, it is precisely that case that led to this amendment. Members of this place excoriated the Government for not having dealt with that particular public employee.

Mr Berry: How did he go in the argument about fraud? You do not want to talk about that because the case was never brought.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, could I be allowed to make some remarks?

MR SPEAKER: Yes. There are far too many general interjections. If you want to join the debate, get up and talk when you have the opportunity.

MR HUMPHRIES: Members of this place attacked the Government for not having dealt with that particular public employee; yet, that is exactly the kind of case that this amendment is designed to deal with. If you think that we should deal with such people in a particularly direct and decisive way, why not provide the power in the legislation? You cannot have it both ways. You cannot get stuck into the Government for not acting against public servants in these circumstances and then, when the legislation needs to be amended to fix that particular problem, deny the Government the capacity to use that sort of power. It does not make any sense.

Mr Speaker, Mr Berry, I think, greatly exaggerated the circumstances of engaging in improper conduct. It is not simply engaging in improper conduct otherwise than as a public employee in your private life. It is limited to very clear circumstances. It is conduct that adversely affects the performance of a public servant's duties or brings the public sector or any part of it into disrepute.

Mr Berry: Subjective.

MR HUMPHRIES: It is subjective; but, Mr Speaker, I think the point needs to be made that such tests necessarily are always subjective. There are already subjective tests within the Public Sector Management Act, and there always have been subjective tests. In fact, there have been subjective tests in lots of legislation. It is my recollection that the term "improper conduct", or some term very similar to that, appears in the Judicial Commissions Act whereby we deal with improper conduct by judges. The term is not defined in legislation, but we have to have a provision which is fairly subjective because it is impossible to define the whole range of individual circumstances where a person might behave in a way which requires their removal. If Mr Berry or Mr Moore is concerned about the lack of definition of improper conduct, why have they not put it into other legislation where that term has been used? Mr Moore supported the Judicial Commissions Act when it was brought before this place, as did Mr Berry.

Mr Berry: Yes, but that was before the sacking of Jacqui Rees and the director of mental health and all that stuff.

MR SPEAKER: Order!

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