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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 3 Hansard (24 March) . . Page.. 766 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

based on some action of a third party altogether. If anybody in this place enjoys a particular right, why should their enjoyment of that right depend on what some third party does? Why should the protection the law gives to that right be dependent on some third person's action? Mr Speaker, if we think about this in any kind of depth we realise that there is a fundamental flaw in what this legislation is trying to do. I urge members to be very clear. They should not do this. This is a serious and fundamental error.

If you do think that there is some kind of omission on the part of the Government - the Government should have addressed this issue and it is negligent for not doing so - that gives some kind of basis for bringing forward legislation now to cancel these people's rights, why did the Government not bring forward legislation before the expiry of the limitation period? Mr Speaker, the answer is clear. It is because the Government did not want to, because the Government did not believe that to do so was right. It believed that to do so would be morally reprehensible.

Mr Speaker, I am not telling members of the Assembly, particularly members of the Labor Party, anything that they do not already know. They know perfectly well that the Government's view was that the legislation was seriously flawed, at least in a moral sense. How do they know? They know because I wrote to the shadow Attorney-General on 8 May last year, copies of which have been tabled in the Assembly, and I sent a copy of an earlier letter which I had sent to the Justice and Community Safety Committee, in which I said:

... I am loath to present a Bill to the Assembly which potentially and retrospectively alters the grounds for the prosecution of an offence without seriously considering the implications of such an action.

What right did any member of this place have to assume that the Government was going to bring forward legislation within that 12-month period to effect that particular change? I ask that because I wrote very clearly:

I am loath to present a Bill to the Assembly which potentially and retrospectively alters the grounds for the prosecution of an offence ...

Mr Berry: Read the second last paragraph, Gary.

MR HUMPHRIES: I will read the second last paragraph:

The Government will need to urgently give consideration to a Bill to deal with the issue raised, but given its enormous sensitivity and my wish for this not to be a debate which, on the floor of the Assembly, may prejudice the inquest, I would appreciate the Committee's views.

Mr Speaker, I was writing for, first of all, the committees' views, and then Mr Stanhope's and the Labor Party's views, on whether there was any logical or reasonable argument to bring forward legislation which did retrospectively cancel people's rights. Did I get any argument about why it would be appropriate to do that?

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