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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Tuesday, 25 May 2004) . . Page.. 2163 ..

Clause 5 of this bill does not require a development application to accompany the change; so we would not necessarily have any of those basic disclosures. We will not necessarily be able to acquire documents relating to the approval that a court could easily subpoena, and yet we will have to make a decision about the appropriateness of the action. This should not be our role, and the decision we will make will inevitably be one that will be seen as political and not a question of the law.

This particular amendment from Ms Tucker goes one step further than some of the other amendments in relation to disallowable and notifiable instruments because it ensures that no action done under this legislation may take effect until the Assembly has confirmed it. This overcomes one problem with disallowable instruments, in that most of them have taken effect before the Assembly has the opportunity to disallow them.

The point of this amendment is that it will force members of this Assembly to assume some responsibility for overriding the proper role of the courts with the potential to reply to the majority of needs to personally approve each and every instance of this bill being used. Whilst I understand what Ms Tucker is getting at—and I will be able to support this amendment in that it does make sure that this Assembly sees what is going on before it happens—I do reiterate the position that the Democrats cannot support the bill as a whole regardless of which amendments pass or fail because it does not maintain those basic fundamentals of the courts.

Question put:

That Ms Tucker’s amendment be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Question so resolved in the negative.

Amendment negatived.

Clause 5 agreed to.

Clause 6.

MS TUCKER (12.14): I move amendment No 2 circulated in my name [see schedule 1 at page 2176].

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