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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1999 Week 13 Hansard (9 December) . . Page.. 4153 ..

MR QUINLAN (continuing):

Of course, it has not been. The committee has respected the confidences of the resumes that have been brought to it. In fact, the committee has shown more respect at times than has the Government, which has announced appointments before they have actually referred them to the committee. The Government can do that. The problem with that is the risk of embarrassment to the person, not to the committee and not to the Government. These conflicts of interest, particularly this declaration, are consistent with the way that I have moved in this place before. And, yes, if there is legislation that does need to be updated with current thinking verified by a majority in this place, then we will certainly look at that in the near future.

In reference to discussion on the second amendment that I moved, we have a clause that says:

To me, as an accountant, that is a little bit of a disturbing statement. Sometimes consideration received can be a large lump of money for the control of an asset such as a lease over a considerable time and could not be declared income for accounting purposes. Instead of trying to turn the Act on its head, I therefore put that caveat in front of it so that we can say, "Okay, we are happy. We are covered". The belt and braces term Mr Humphries used was a term I mentioned to him in our discussions.

In relation to the third amendment, there is consistency again with the approach. When we have discussed this with other people and with Parliamentary Counsel, all of a sudden we were not given unequivocal advice that the Statutory Appointments Act would actually apply. I commend my amendments to the house once more.

MR HUMPHRIES (Treasurer, Attorney-General and Minister for Justice and Community Safety) (5.48): The amendment to Mr Quinlan's amendment to clause 20, which has been circulated in my name, simply inserts a provision that a statement under subsection (1) or (2) about disclosure of interest is confidential to the relevant committee and must not be published in any way. I have had some debate with the Clerk about the best way of doing this, and there may be some better way. I think to dispose of this legislation and get these appointments out of the way, it would be best to take this approach at this point and perhaps look at the issue in the future. Mr Quinlan intends to insert these provisions throughout legislation in the future. We will have to come back and insert those sorts of provisions there in any case. I move:

Amendment agreed to.

Amendments (Mr Quinlan's ), as amended, agreed to.

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