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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Thursday, 1 July 2004) . . Page.. 3172 ..

Act, which refers to better lawmaking and to the scrutiny and consideration due to any piece of proposed legislation that comes before the Assembly. Part 5, which is entitled “Scrutiny of proposed Territory laws”, states:

Section 37 Attorney-General’s statement on government bills

I have not seen such a statement from the Attorney General, but it might have been tabled. The act states:

(1) This section applies to each bill presented to the Legislative Assembly by a Minister.

(2) The Attorney-General must prepare a written statement (the compatibility statement) about the bill for presentation to the Legislative Assembly.

(3) The compatibility statement must state—

(a) whether, in the Attorney-General’s opinion, the bill is consistent with human rights; and

(b) if it is not consistent, how it is not consistent with human rights.

Section 38 Consideration of bills by a standing committee of the Assembly

(1) The relevant standing committee must report to the Legislative Assembly about human rights issues raised by bills presented to the Assembly.

(2) In this section:

relevant standing committee means

(a) the standing committee of the Legislative Assembly nominated by the Speaker for this section; or

(b) if no nomination under paragraph (a) is in effect—the standing committee of the Legislative Assembly responsible for the consideration of legal issues.

Since no time has been allowed to enable us to do the right thing and to follow the law, I will bring some human rights issues to the attention of the Assembly and, in particular, to the attention of the Attorney General. I refer to clause 6, which will introduce a new subsection to section 10, which is entitled “Standing to bring proceeding in relation to authorisations.” Standing relates to gaining access to the courts and it provides the basis on which to bring a proceeding. The essence of the Gungahlin Drive Extension Authorisation Act is to be found in section 10 (4), which states:

The imposition of a condition on an authorisation does not create a right in anyone other than the Territory.

The purpose of that section was to rule out any basis for scrutiny by the courts. So far as I can tell, the amending clause in the bill today will ensure that no interest—not even a public interest—can be claimed. That is because the courts decided that an interest

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