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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 05 Hansard (Tuesday, 25 May 2004) . . Page.. 2166 ..

like this, one is often reminded of the famous dictum of Lord Acton that “power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. But when thinking about how this government operates, I think they tend to follow not so much Lord Acton but the Oscar Wilde version which says “Power is marvellous and absolute power is absolutely marvellous”, and this is why the opposition is proposing to move an amendment to put some constraints on this minister’s absolutely marvellous absolute power. There are amendments further in the process that will address this issue, and we do intend to address this issue and put some constraints on the minister.

But the intent of this legislation is in fact to ensure that we do not end up in the courts; the preamble says, in effect, that this argument has been done to death and we are not going to end up in the courts. What we are actually doing by following the path proposed by Ms Tucker is increasing the probability that we will end up in the courts. We have a choice between attempting to reinstate judicial accountability and going for political accountability. In this situation, the opposition has opted for political accountability by proposing to make the authorisations for the GDE and works related disallowable rather than simply notifiable.

It would provide accountability while avoiding further risks of delay through the exercise of rights under the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act and the seeking of prerogative writs through the Supreme Court. It is essentially an either or situation. A judicial constraint on the actions of an executive is one thing—and it is something that we should be looking at—but, by the Assembly taking on itself the decision by making this a disallowable instrument, there is a different level of constraint and I think that the actions of the legislature in this case should be paramount.

MS DUNDAS (12.23): This amendment removes the phrase “the Minister’s absolute discretion”. The wording has been included in the government’s bill in order to try to avoid any case being brought to the Supreme Court, and the minister made a decision without considering whether that decision was fair, whether that decision was reasonable or whether it failed to take into account proper process. This part of the bill basically says the minister may do whatever he wishes in relation to the Gungahlin Drive extension free from any questioning about how that decision was arrived at. I think that is one of the fundamental problems with the legislation before us today.

Members of this place have talked about the Gungahlin Drive extension and how it has been around for debate since 1990; the decision was made in 1997; we have had this debate; let’s just get on with building a road. But when in this debate over the last 10 years did we discuss the need to remove citizens’ rights for political expediency in terms of building this road? We have had the debate about east or west; we have had the debate about four lanes or two; we have had the debate about how it moves into the Black Mountain Nature Reserve; we have had the debate about how far into Gungahlin it goes. We have had all those debates, but it is only today that we have had the debate about the need to strip away citizens’ rights to access the court, citizens’ rights to question what ministers are doing and citizens’ rights to participate in this democracy fully. It is only today that we have had this debate, and it is shameful that we are having this debate at all. That is why I think this amendment does a little to address the core problems with this bill, but this bill is fundamentally bad law.

Question put:

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