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

Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2004 Week 07 Hansard (Thursday, 1 July 2004) . . Page.. 3174 ..

A new territory dam is one example nominated specifically in the Liberals’ Bill, which aims to stop “vexatious appeals.”

He also said:

This bill is even more unfortunate. If future governments chose to exploit it, the Liberals’ measure would deprive members of the public of the opportunity to have an independent tribunal scrutinise key questions about the most important developments in the ACT. Public rights would be lost in exactly those cases where they mattered most.

He referred to Jim McClelland, a former minister in the Whitlam Labor government, and said:

McClelland was scathing about the way in which such legislation deprived members of the public of their rights, diminished environmental scrutiny and prevented judicial supervision of decisions. He declared such legislation an “abuse of power”.

This bill, which was prepared on the run so as to negate a reasonable court decision, takes us further down the abuse of power road. Clause 4 will give the minister the power to declare an area of nature reserve that is or may be part of the Gungahlin Drive extension construction not to be part of the nature reserve. New clause 6A (5) (b) provides that territory laws apply to the land in question, that is, formerly a reserve, with the modifications, if any, prescribed under the regulations. That is an extraordinary clause.

While it has been noted, the scrutiny committee has not had time to meet to consider properly this contravention of the Human Rights Act 2004. This clause clearly seems to authorise the use of regulations under this act to modify the effect of other acts. This morning Peter Bayne, the legal adviser, in response to my query about this, said that he thought it applied only to the territory plan, itself a subordinate law, and so it was not a Henry VIII-type clause. However, the words of this proposed new clause mention territory law. We have not had time to fulfil our obligations under the Human Rights Act and the scrutiny committee has not had time to pursue this issue. It is the responsibility of every member in this place to take time to examine legislation such as this, but obviously that does not seem to pose a problem for many people.

I have referred in debate to the significant issue of proper democratic and human rights processes. Although this bill might be limited to the Gungahlin Drive extension, it has set a dangerous precedent in that it will enable governments to wipe away laws whenever it is convenient for them to do so. It is likely that this sort of thing will happen in the future because we have created this precedent. I will not speak at length about road issues because I think the view of the Greens is well and truly on the record. However, I do not think this issue is as simple as the government is portraying it to be. The government claimed that this extension was always going to be part of the road, so there was no issue. Obviously I do not agree with that statement.

MRS CROSS (5.00): The last time I spoke in debate on the Gungahlin Drive extension I said that all that had to be said had already been said. Nothing has really changed that statement. In May the Assembly passed the Gungahlin Drive Extension Authorisation

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