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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2002 Week 6 Hansard (16 May) . . Page.. 1773 ..

Detail stage

MR SPEAKER: To be consistent with past practice, we have to conclude by 7 pm, so I would ask members to be as economical as they can, consistent with the contributions they want to make to the debate. I am also advised that we have never breached the commitment to staff that we will conclude by 7 o'clock. So let us try to get through this as quickly as we can.

Clauses 1 to 11, by leave, taken together and agreed to.

Clause 12.

MS DUNDAS (6.41): I move amendment No 1 circulated in my name [see schedule 1 at page 1779].

My amendment would change the approval of a new fidelity fund scheme from a notifiable instrument to a disallowable instrument. Minister Corbell said in his presentation speech and in a letter he circulated on the same day that approval would be disallowable, but the bill and explanatory memorandum state that it is notifiable. My amendment takes the minister at his word.

The amendment is an accountability measure. With all the power vested in the minister, if two applications, both meeting prudential standards, come before him, he could approve or reject without involving the Assembly and would not have to justify his reasons. The only recourse would be to take the minister to the AAT. The wielding of this power could raise allegations of preferred treatment of one fidelity fund over another.

My amendment moves the final power of veto from the minister to the Assembly so that it is a more open process and any allegation of preferred treatment can be debated and voted on through a motion of disallowance and decisions taken under what is a ground-breaking new scheme-which has been developed quite quickly, as the minister pointed out-can be monitored and the Assembly can be involved in the process.

I understand this would make the approval process of any final scheme six sitting days longer, but I do not see this as an overly onerous time period, as there are a number of things that have disallowances provisions attached to them. I do not see that we can have anything less for this new scheme, even in this time of so-called crisis.

MR CORBELL (Minister for Education, Youth and Family Services, Minister for Planning and Minister for Industrial Relations) (6.43): Mr Speaker, the government will not be supporting Ms Dundas' amendment, because it is based on a misunderstanding. I think Ms Dundas misunderstood my statement. What I said was that schemes will need to be approved by the minister, subject to criteria in a disallowable instrument. This means that the criteria, as set out in the draft instrument circulated to members yesterday are disallowable. However, the written approval of the scheme is notified but is not itself disallowable.

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