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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (4 November) . . Page.. 3502 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

I am also wondering where this principle leads us with other legislation. Mr Speaker, we have other situations where, in essence, governments appoint people to perform roles in a sense to serve the community rather than to serve the government. I cannot think of any off the top of my head at the moment. I recall that, until we recently amended it, the original Mediation Bill that was before this house proposed that the Minister appoint mediators. This is a similar situation. It would be unfortunate if, because the Minister was appointing mediators who acted out in the community for individual clients in essence, the Government had to bring the names of those mediators before a parliamentary committee. Off the top of my head, I cannot think of any other cases where that principle applies. I have only just seen these amendments, but I would hope that we would not get to the position that any appointment by a Minister relating to positions out in the broader community ended up being caught by this process of having to be brought before a parliamentary committee. That would be an unfortunate development.

However, since I cannot point to any particular appointments which are going to be a problem, I will not oppose the amendments. Unlike the Labor Party, we do not oppose for opposition's sake. We will support the amendments, but I sound a note of caution. We will have to monitor this situation and, if, for example, we find individuals saying, "Yes, I want to be a JP, but I do not really want to have my name dragged through the public process of a parliamentary committee", then it may be that we have to revisit this issue.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Bill agreed to in principle.

Detail Stage

Bill, by leave, taken as a whole

MR MOORE (11.10), by leave: Mr Speaker, I move the following amendments together:

Page 2, line 1, clause 4, omit the clause.

Page 2, line 7, clause 5, omit the clause.

Page 2, after clause 5, add the following proposed new clause:

"Application

6. The Principal Act is amended by inserting after section 3 the following new section:

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