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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Tuesday, 25 May 2004) . . Page.. 2149 ..

We know that the community will only regain its confidence in government if governments can demonstrate that they are committed to the same core values as those held by the communities they represent.

ACT Labor knows the core values of the Canberra community.

They are our core values.

They are written in our Code of Good Government.

My pledge is to live and govern by them.

In that context, you would think it extraordinary not only that this government would draft a bill which strips away the rights and protections that are so important to transparent and accountable governance, but also that it was quite content to do so without adequate opportunity for parliamentary scrutiny or any opportunity for other members to consider it in anything approaching a thoughtful way.

The ACT Labor Party’s policy on government reads:

Labor understands that good government does not bully. It leads. Good government accepts criticism. Good government has the courage to allow itself to be closely scrutinised. It conducts its operations in an open, honest and accountable manner, not in secret…Good government protects the values and principles of the community and of our liberal democracy.

These principles now appear to be that, if you run into trouble, you simply change the law, whatever impact there might be on other laws and principles. In fact, this bill removes any requirement under the land act for a further or additional PA of the environmental impact of the GDE, or for any other assessment or inquiry under part 4 of that act, namely, environmental assessments and inquiries, or any other action under the GDE.

It also removes any statutory procedures for future authorisations, licenses, permits or consents, however described, for any works related to the GDE, giving the minister alone absolute power and discretion to make any authorisation in relation to the GDE, with any conditions of the minister’s choosing. This includes the procedures, the protections, under the Environment Protection Act 1997, the Heritage Act 2004, the Nature Conservation Act 2004, the Land (Planning and Environment) Act 1991, or a territory law prescribed under the regulations in case they have missed any protections.

The bill also removes any standard appeal rights whatsoever in relation to the minister’s personal authorisations, as in clause 9; nor can anyone challenge in any way anything to do with a condition placed on such an authorisation. The appeal that remains is the common law right to go through the Supreme Court, which is expensive and difficult to mount. I suspect that it remains only because a government cannot remove access to that.

The bill, effectively, states in the preamble that the Assembly believes that, because legal challenges to the GDE are not supported by a majority of the Canberra community, they should not be allowed. That is fundamentally in opposition to what the courts are about,

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