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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 6 Hansard (14 May) . . Page.. 1530 ..

MR STANHOPE (continuing):

The Office of Parliamentary Counsel does not accept the force of the arguments that have been advanced by the Bar Association. I am not suggesting that I resile from my support of the provisions contained within chapter 14. Nevertheless, I am more than happy to see chapter 14 omitted at this stage, while we sort out this issue and return to the status quo. I refer to the provisions in the Interpretation Act that relate to the use of extraneous aids to interpretation.

I could go, in detail, to the arguments of Mr Harris. I could advance the counter-arguments that my department and the Office of Parliamentary Counsel would mount in response to the concerns expressed by the Bar Association. Although I would be more than happy to do that, I do not think it would be useful for us to do it here today. I do not think this is the venue for a long, detailed, technical argument in relation to the use of extraneous materials, and whether or not the concerns of the Bar Association, as rebutted by the Office of Parliamentary Counsel and the department of justice, can be resolved on the floor of the Assembly.

I understand there is unanimous support for the bulk of the bill, although there are concerns about the operation of chapter 14. So I am proposing that, at this stage, we excise chapter 14, maintaining the status quo-namely, the Interpretation Act-allow those other parts of this important piece of legislative reform to become law and, after detailed consultations with Mr Stefaniak, the Bar Association and others, revisit chapter 14 another day.

MR SPEAKER: Before we proceed any further, I would like to welcome to the Assembly some Canberra citizens from the Migrant Resource Centre who are present in the gallery today. Welcome.

MR STEFANIAK (11.11): I thank Mr Stanhope for this amendment and note his comments. I also thank Mr Stanhope for providing a copy of the Bar Association's note. Mr Harris said he was going to send that to me. I received it last night, which gave me a chance to read it. I have been advised by my office that Mr Harris is also very satisfied with this arrangement. I probably needed to put that on the record. I was contacted a few minutes ago in relation to that. I think it is most appropriate. I had a chance to talk to Parliamentary Counsel, and Mr Stanhope accurately reflects their views. I still have problems, but I think the most appropriate way of going about it is to put back in what has been applied here for a number of years-that is, sections 11A and 11B of the Interpretation Act.

I am not going to go over the substantive arguments. We had a fair bit of that last week. No doubt that will continue over the next few months-and that is as it should be. I will comment on one point in Mr Harris' advice. It is not so much that he seems to go off on a tangent-he makes a valid comment about consultation, although I think he has got the wrong body. He said in his second paragraph that unfortunately the association was not consulted by the Standing Committee on Legal Affairs about the contents of the bill. He goes on to say that it only had the opportunity to closely examine the bill at a later stage; that it is not right for the Committee on Legal Affairs-the scrutiny of bills committee-to send bills to various agencies such as the Bar Association; and that, if we did that, it would really slow down legislation.

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