Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2003 Week 3 Hansard (12 March) . . Page.. 942 ..

MR STEFANIAK (3.34), in reply: In closing the debate in the in-principle stage, I thank the Chief Minister for his comments. I agree with him about the cooperative nature of this over the past week. It has been very good. I especially wish to thank John and Nick, from the Parliamentary Counsel office, for the work they have done at short notice. I thank Peter Quinton; Tom Evans-and Geoff Gosling, from the Chief Minister's office, in particular, for the extensive liaison he has had with me and my office and, of course, with the Chief Minister.

Mr Speaker, the negotiations were very successful. Whilst there are certain parts of the advice I would disagree with, at the end of the day, what I want to see in place is good, workable legislation that will protect people giving evidence before this inquiry, they can make their statements in the knowledge that they can be full, frank and truthful in what they say.

I would caution anyone who is trying to abuse any of this against unnecessarily slagging off at individuals. I do not necessarily think that would be the case with this inquiry. We want to ensure that people can feel unconstrained in giving their evidence to this inquiry on what they saw. In that way-God forbid-if the ACT is ever faced with a horrible situation such as the January fires again, if there are steps that have been learned that we can take to respond to and perhaps mitigate any future potential danger-they can be taken. And if there are lessons to be learned, they can be learned as a result of this inquiry.

I thank those people for their cooperation. I thank all members of the house for this legislation, which will give that protection and which will, I think, greatly assist this inquiry.

MS DUNDAS (3.36): Mr Speaker, I apologise for my short absence from the chamber. I seek leave to speak on the in-principle stage.

Leave granted.

MS DUNDAS: The ACT Democrats congratulate Mr Stefaniak for introducing this bill. If the protection of privilege applied to all evidence given to the McLeod inquiry, it would provide peace of mind for firefighters, and others with evidence that could help the ACT avoid another disaster of the like of the January bushfires.

As I have said when we have had this debate before, I believe that any investigation into the events surrounding the bushfires should provide full protection for witnesses giving sensitive evidence. Without this protection, some people may err on the side of caution and withhold evidence that could potentially be of great value.

There is always the risk of untrue statements but, as in a court case, you have to put your faith in the person or people who are weighing the evidence before them in the drawing of conclusions. Last week, I noted that the government's decision to form an inquiry without protection for witnesses from potential defamation actions had attracted criticism from the United Firefighters Union and some individual firefighters. I believe we should take these criticisms very seriously.

Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . .