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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Tuesday, 25 May 2004) . . Page.. 2140 ..

identify opportunities to use any possible legal challenge to disrupt the project. The government does not believe that such steps are in the broader public interest. It is important that opportunities for future vexatious and disruptive challenges be minimised and the government’s bill achieves this objective to the greatest possible extent.

Any watering down of the bill’s provisions will only serve to provide more opportunities for people opposed to the project to further disrupt its work and consequently add to the delay of the project, additional costs to the territory and its taxpayers and, most importantly, additional uncertainty of the provision of this important piece of public infrastructure. Support for the government’s bill will ensure the earliest possible completion of the road at the least possible additional cost. Surely this outcome is in the interests of all the community. It is the government’s view that that is the case, and we urge members to support the bill.

MRS DUNNE (10.39): The opposition has thought carefully about the issues involved in this piece of legislation. It is a matter of some regret that we need to have a special sitting to debate a one-off piece of legislation to fix the problems of the GDE. Generally speaking, case-specific legislation is an admission of legislative and administrative failure, needing the legal equivalent of a rubber band and gaffer tape to provide a solution. This bill may not be in the same class as bills of attainder—which were popular under Henry VIII, when an act of parliament could be made putting a man to death or otherwise punishing him without trial or usual form—or even the recent bills passed in New South Wales and Victoria designed to keep particular people in prison. The objections to these cases are obvious and stem largely from the fact that they involve taking away the most basic individual human rights. Yet this bill shares some of the same character.

Appeal rights are suppressed in a very direct and, some would say, cynical manner. My office, doubtless like the offices of all members here, has received a number of submissions expressing concern about such a precedent, though it is fair to say that the majority appear to be more concerned about the road than the precedent. In this bill we have the concept of absolute ministerial discretion, which is very much a legal last resort. Why are we supporting such a flawed approach? Because an admission of legislative or administrative failure is singularly appropriate in this situation. The government has made a series of undertakings regarding the Gungahlin Drive extension and failed to deliver on any of them. We are here today because of the failures of the government.

The opposition has put forward a general model for dealing with cases of this nature whereby, subject to the will of the Assembly, particular projects of territorial significance in the provision of infrastructure, employment or economic benefit could be protected from appeals on questions of substance, though they would remain open to appeals on failure of process. This would have been an appropriate model to resolve the problems of the GDE had it been employed earlier this year. I believe it would have been appropriate had the legislation been passed in the previous session, which is why I moved to suspend standing orders to bring it on as a matter of urgency—something I did not do lightly. However, the government shut down that session rather than debate our bill. The longer a decision is delayed, the more pressure there is on us, including a perfectly reasonable pressure from the people of Gungahlin to introduce emergency measures to avoid further delays.

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