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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (4 November) . . Page.. 3585 ..

Ms McRae: Get on with you! Because he made up his own laws to suit his own purposes.

MR MOORE: I hear Ms McRae saying that it was because he wrote his own laws. I presume that he got his parliament to pass laws that gave the power back to him. I see the Deputy Clerk nodding as well. So, we do have a good understanding of why they are called that. Here he is, quite a number of centuries later, still popping his head up. Of course, others who were close to him were not able to pop their heads up.

Mr Hird: He chopped them off.

MR MOORE: Thank you, Mr Hird; indeed. I am pleased that we have been able to pick this up and that members have agreed to make it the normal regulatory power of legislation.

MS McRAE (5.52): The Opposition will agree to this, although the explanation given to me is far less sinister than perhaps is implied by Mr Moore. I do not think every Henry VIII provision is necessarily, of itself, something that gives the Executive any extra power than it ever has. For heaven's sake, the Executive can always amend its own legislation by bringing in new legislation. This is simply a provision within the legislation to change the regulations. I would like, one day, to debate the clause further as to whether it is actually as sinister and as dreadful as all that and whether it should be expunged in every case.

The reason that was put forward to me - and perhaps the Minister could have explained it to us more fully in the explanatory memorandum - was specifically that this is such an extraordinary and unusual piece of legislation, and it happens so rarely, if it ever has, in the history of transfers of universities in Australia, that they were very nervous that somehow they had got something wrong or had forgotten something. Because it is so complicated to get it through both here and the parliament, the answer, as I understood it, was a provision that had a sunset clause, was available to the Executive for only a year and was just to make things smoother.

I do not necessarily view that as anything sinister or untoward, although I accept the basic principle: Why do it that way when you can do it by regulation or, in fact, bring in a new Bill? It is probably better, in terms of consistency, to stick with that provision rather than put in these extra clauses. Because it was given a sunset clause and because it was so clearly an unusual piece of legislation, I do not have any concern about that particular provision; but I am more than happy to accept this amendment and put it into the more normal regulatory processes that we are used to.

MR STEFANIAK (Minister for Education and Training) (5.53): Certainly, Ms McRae is quite right in terms of its being unusual legislation and there being nothing sinister. Also, she has quite rightly pointed out that it is a sunset clause. That being said, the Government does not have any real problems with Mr Moore's amendment, which is the standard form of all Acts. Accordingly, we will be supporting it.

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