Page 2690 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 16 August 2005
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I respect the separation of powers—it is a very significant doctrine. I respect it and I will not intrude in the operations of any of our courts, including our Coroners Court.
He went on to say:
It is vitally important that we maintain the integrity of the courts. There is to be absolutely no suggestion that this government seeks to undermine or affect the independence of the judiciary in the pursuance of its duties in any way whatsoever.
Yet, that is precisely what he did. On 9 December 2004, again on ABC radio, when he was responding to the suggestion that the appeal against the coroner was a breach of the separations of powers he said:
That is a nonsense to suggest. It is a nonsense argument. Nine individuals represented before the coronial inquest have decided to appeal to the Supreme Court on a matter of law … I defend them absolutely in that. There are issues that affect the Territory in the coronial process. The same issues of concern have been made with me. I am the Attorney-General. I had three options ... To support the action taken by the individuals, to oppose the action taken by the individuals or to remain neutral, simply shut up and not get involved. That wasn’t an option as far as I was concerned.
Mr Speaker, he chose the one option he should never have chosen and, I think, showed a very grave lack of judgment in doing so. Indeed, so partisan are his persuasions, with all his talk about the administration of justice, that he even criticised the opposition for attending a rally of fire fighters outside the court, where no opposition MLAs spoke, and said that was in clear breach of their responsibilities not to impugn the conventions around the separations of powers or the sub judice rule. It seems that the Chief Minister makes the rulebook up, as he goes along, to suit himself.
After delaying the coronial inquiry for 10 months, at a cost of approximately $1.8 million, about five hearing dates out from what would have been the conclusion of the coronial inquiry, the full bench of the Supreme Court decided in favour of the coroner. What was the attorney’s reaction? He said he was extremely surprised in view of the weight of all that top legal advice that he had sought and that he had received.
Everyone knows, however, that there are as many legal opinions as there are lawyers. It begs the question: who is the first law officer of the ACT—the man who holds the office or the eminent QCs who advise him? A wise leader has to be able to choose amongst all the advice he receives constantly with a view to the wider good. This is what the Attorney-General constantly failed to do in this instance.
Not content with simply bankrolling the appeal of the nine public servants, he joined in too and did this without considering the electorate as a whole. He does not consider that by obstructing this coronial inquiry into the fires he is causing much heartache to the hundreds of people who have suffered greatly from the fires that ravaged suburban Canberra without warning.
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