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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 13 Hansard (7 December) . . Page.. 3797 ..

MR MOORE (continuing):

The person who is providing the legal advice to the scrutiny of Bills committee is a man of some legal standing. There is no doubt about that. We respect that and we respect that legal view. But it is a legal view. So, Mr Speaker, if I give you some examples from the supervised injecting trial comment, I think it would be worth while.

The disappointing part for me is that it is quite clear that the information that I circulated to every member has not been provided to the legal adviser to the scrutiny of Bills committee. For example, taking the last point first, on international treaties, we have a series of legal opinions showing, very clearly, that we will be acting in a way that is consistent with our international treaties.

Mr Osborne: You know they are wrong.

MR MOORE: Your legal adviser does not disagree with that. I know that Mr Osborne has personal separate legal advice to the opposite, but for every piece of legal advice you will almost always find an alternative. I urge members, and I urge members of the media, to read the two or three pages - it is not very much - and look at the issue of civil liberties and treaty obligations. It does not say anywhere here that the legislation is inconsistent. It raises issues about consistency. We have dealt with those issues and, as I say, we will do a proper response to this report.

Mr Osborne's interpretation of what the legal adviser has said is not a sensible way to interpret it. For example, Mr Osborne raised the very first point, the notion of dispensing with the law. The words of the legal adviser to the committee were that the issue for the Assembly is whether displacement is justified in any particular case. I will read this. It says:

That is the very issue that we have not ignored but have debated at some time. Mr Stanhope and I have a disagreement on what is the best way to do that, but it is still, as the legal adviser says, an issue for the Assembly as to whether this displacement is justified in any particular case. What we have said is that it is justifiable to displace it because we are talking about saving lives and because we are talking about the spread of disease. So that is the fundamental issue there.

The legal adviser raises issues that we must consider, many of which we have already considered and will respond to. He talks about the relationship of the legislation with the Director of Public Prosecutions and how we should respond to that. We will debate that further. He also talks about the definition of a drug dependent person and how that might limit the legislation. In fact, Mr Stanhope and I have debated, ourselves, what is the best definition, but because the scrutiny of Bills committee has raised it we will look at it again. I am sure Mr Stanhope would be prepared to look at it again in light of this, but we have been through these issues.

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