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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (25 May) . . Page.. 1852 ..

MR BERRY (continuing):

office consists of the commissioner and the office's staff. That, as they say, is to state the bleeding obvious. The bill provides that the staff of the commissioner's office must be employed under the Public Sector Management Act. That is covered by section 25I and an amendment which has already been circulated in this place. The bill provides that the commissioner may, in writing, delegate to a member of the staff of the commissioner's office any of the commissioner's powers other than the commissioner's powers under proposed section 83. I am informed that that is covered by section 25J.

Mr Speaker, the subsequent provisions are consequential and relate to drafting style and need no further comment from me. The Statute Law Amendment Act provision repairs a typo in the legislation originally brought forward in this place. This bill seeks to repeal that. There are a couple of other consequential amendments which are relatively unimportant in the scheme of things.

Mr Speaker, did you know that this bill seeks to amend a law that does not exist? You did not know that, did you? Let us look at that. If you turn to page 6 of the bill you will see a reference to amendment of the Statute Law Amendment Act 2000. It reads:

It is not a law yet. It is a bill before this place, but it has not been passed. You cannot pass this piece of legislation with that in it because it means nothing.

Let me turn to the amendments which I foreshadow. These amendments put in place a regime which parallels the provisions for the Auditor-General. I have explained why I introduced an occupational health and safety bill which provided the commissioner with powers to employ. For the record, I will quote clause 4 of the bill which has been tabled in this place:

That ensures that there is complete and utter independence in the employment of staff.

Mr Smyth did make mention yesterday of a further amendment which was circulated yesterday in relation to this matter. By the way, these amendments were not drafted in my office; they were drafted by the law officers and have their backing. They are not lightweight amendments that somebody just wrote upon the back of an envelope.

The second amendment which I circulated yesterday deals with the application of the Financial Management Act to the commissioner as if the commissioner was a departmental secretary and gives him all of the necessary provisions of the Financial Management Act, including those relating to the provision of annual reports and budgets. There would be a separate line in the budget for this department, in much the same way as applies to the Auditor-General. If the minister is committed to independence, this is the most independent model. It creates a new department for the Occupational Health

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