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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (4 November) . . Page.. 3506 ..

MR BERRY (Leader of the Opposition) (11.20): I will tell you what it is based on. It is based on people moving on. The decision was made for this Assembly to have this sort of scrutiny of appointments.

Mr Humphries: Which you opposed.

MR BERRY: Indeed, it was opposed by the Labor Party; but we are not saying, "The war is not over yet, because we have not stopped fighting". The fact of the matter is that the Assembly decided that that was the course that we were going to take. If there is a need to reverse it, then something will be put forward to do it. That is the course that has been supported by the majority in this Assembly, and the Labor Party have not been capable of changing it, even if they decided to do so - and they have not. Let us put that issue to rest, for a start.

The next thing that Mr Humphries raised was the uncertainty about anything he says in his speeches. I think it is very clear that Mr Humphries cannot be taken at his word in his speeches. I guess that is my fault. In discussions with my office, the offices of others were not prepared to accept the words of Mr Humphries that it may be capable of being remedied administratively; but I am quite happy now that Mr Moore has come forward with amendments, because they resolve the matter once and for all and they will be supported.

MR WHITECROSS (11.22): Mr Speaker, I rise to pick up one thing that the Minister had to say in relation to this Bill. I am interested that the Minister is so desperate to ensure that Mr Moore gets the credit for the Statutory Appointments Bill and tries to make out that the Liberal Party had nothing to do with it, whereas of course the Liberal Party supported it. It is ironic that the Minister should attack the Labor Party for accepting the decision of the Assembly to go down the path of statutory appointments and try to apply the rules set down in the Statutory Appointments Bill consistently, while the Minister on the other hand, having supported the Bill in the first place, now seeks to get exemptions from the Bill for statutory appointments which he thinks should not be covered by the legislation.

Mr Speaker, I think the Labor Party's position is a sensible one. We say, "Yes, we did have some strong reservations about the legislation; but the legislation has been passed, it still enjoys the confidence of the majority of the Assembly and our intention is to ensure that it works properly". The irony of Mr Humphries's remarks is that, having supported the Statutory Appointments Bill and argued that statutory appointments should all be referred to an Assembly committee for appropriate review, he is now arguing that some people might be inhibited from accepting statutory appointments because they do not want their names dragged through an Assembly committee. I think that is a pretty extraordinary concession by the Minister, given the force with which the Liberal Party supported this legislation in the first place. The fact is that it was always the result of the Statutory Appointments Bill that people who accepted statutory appointments would have their names subject to some sort of committee scrutiny.

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