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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (25 May) . . Page.. 1861 ..
Mr Berry: I am sure we are. We have professional legal advice.
MR SMYTH: I have professional legal advice that rates it as the lowest ranked option. Are you confident it does what you want? Have you considered whether all the legislation operates harmoniously? The advice from public servants, the Government Solicitor and Parliamentary Counsel, the people who have helped you get to where you are, is that they are not sure that it does. Because this is now the third set of amendments, I am not sure we can be confident on this very important point.
The advice to my department is that we do not know. We are not saying that it is not or that it cannot. We just do not know, because it is not an easy question to answer. It will take a long time to work through all these various pieces of legislation to make sure there are no conflicts. There may still be more work to do if we go with option 5. We have not pursued that path, because it is not the preferred course of action, in our view.
My option is much cleaner and it does not have that doubt. The Government Solicitor's office ranked options for what we could do to amend the act to make it work. The advice states:
The options, in descending order of degree of independence, are:
1. The most appropriate option is the establishment, by statute, of a Territory authority. This would require amendments to the OH&S Act. Part 8 of the FMA would make the chief executive of a Territory authority responsible for the financial management of the authority.
It goes on to say,
I note that the original Workplace Authority Bill 1999 proposed such a statutory authority comprising of 7 members. The current proposal contained in Occupational Health and Safety Amendment Bill 2000 (No. 2) is to create a single-member statutory authority. I have previously advised of the existence, in the ACT, of a number of such statutory authorities. The most significant of all is the Commissioner for Housing ...
It then goes through three other options, until we get to the amendments that Mr Berry will move.
Mr Berry: That does not include the second amendment.
MR SMYTH: This is based on these amendments. (Extension of time granted.) The advice says:
To put forward amendments to the OH&S Act to deem the application of the FMA to the Commissioner. This would require careful consideration in order to ensure that the various pieces of legislation-FMA, PSMA and the OH&S Act-operate harmoniously together.
They do, and I will tell you why: the amendments that Parliamentary Counsel gave you are the amendments they prepared for me. They are exactly the same. That is the option to amend your bill. I have not circulated mine. There is no need. Yours are there. The
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