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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 11 Hansard (29 November) . . Page.. 3399 ..

MR HUMPHRIES (continuing):

We will make this an election issue. The Labor Party, which has so stridently told us that the rule of law has to be sacred in this place, now tells us we are going to say to the coroner, "Your views are immaterial. The threat to your work is of no consequence to us. We are going to override your views. We are going to threaten the coronial process and have another process that will cut across that." If they say that, they will wear every ounce of political argument that comes from that fact. The fact that the inquiry is technically appointed by the government at the end of the day will not save them in that regard.

I urge members strongly not to break the rules in this way, not to distort the political precedent that has been set, the conventions in this area, and not to support this motion.

MS TUCKER (3.45): I think there are a couple of issues here that do need to be addressed. I will respond to some of the points that Mr Humphries raised, particularly about the issue of the integrity of the coronial process being threatened by an independent inquiry under the Inquiries Act. We did have a round table meeting yesterday, obviously, where we discussed some of those issues, and some of the concerns were addressed. Unfortunately, however, Mr Humphries was not able to stay, so perhaps that is why he has not actually responded to some of the other views that were put forward there.

Mr Humphries has presented a picture of absolute gloom and doom. He says we need to be very, very frightened here because, if we support this inquiry, we are basically threatening the integrity of the coronial process, we are showing disrespect to the judiciary, and we are setting a very dangerous precedent.

The first thing I have to say is that, clearly, nobody in this house wants to do any of those things. It is really quite interesting to me that Gary Humphries would not understand that people in this place have all been thinking about this long and hard for six weeks-not just Mr Humphries-and talking to many people about it. I have spoken to at least five-if not more, actually, when I think about it-legal practitioners in the ACT and in New South Wales about these very questions that Mr Humphries has raised.

It is a pity he is not listening, because I am actually more interested in Mr Humphries' response than Mr Moore's here, but Mr Moore is talking to Mr Humphries. I think I should raise the point that, as the new Chief Minister, Mr Humphries has a lot more at stake here than Mr Moore does. I might address that later, when he is not so busy talking to Mr Moore.

One of the first things that strike you when you talk to various people-the professionals in the sector-is that particularly they have is a very different view about how threatening an independent inquiry has to be to a coronial investigation. Given that we all respect the judiciary, the separation of powers and the integrity of the coronial process, the 10 members of this place still want to pursue an independent inquiry.

Now why would that be? It must only be because we have been reassured that, in fact, it is not impossible, it is not a terrifyingly dangerous precedent, but it is actually quite possible. And why is it that we would have come to that conclusion? Probably because

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