Page 1411 - Week 05 - Tuesday, 9 May 2006
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Leave granted.
MR CORBELL: I move amendments Nos 1 and 2 circulated in my name together and table a supplementary explanatory statement to the amendments [see schedule 2 at page 1424].
The government’s amendments are in response to a range of issues raised by the scrutiny of bills committee. None of these have major policy implications or change the intent of the bill, but they clarify wording to raise a number of issues raised by the scrutiny of bills committee.
This particular amendment deals with the issue of intent, as to whether or not a periodic detention order could potentially be extended beyond the maximum of 14 days. The scrutiny of bills committee raised a number of concerns that the provision could be interpreted to extend the provisions for PDOs beyond a maximum of 14 days. That is not the intention. This amendment clarifies the intention that the maximum time limit for detention is 14 days. Amendment 2 relates to the first amendment and is technical in nature.
MR STANHOPE (Ginninderra—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Business and Economic Development, Minister for Indigenous Affairs and Minister for the Arts) (5.42): I will speak very briefly. I wish to speak around the scrutiny of bills committee report—a committee chaired by the shadow attorney. The recommendations and findings of the report are interesting in the context of the attitude of the Liberal Party to this debate on this legislation, which dwells on the scrutiny of bills report in the context of the proposed section 20 of the bill introduced by the Liberal Party, which provides that the Supreme Court takes into account any evidence or information that it thinks is credible in relation to an application for a preventative detention order.
In the context of this debate and the Liberal Party’s position, whilst we are talking about and debating the scrutiny report, I want to take the opportunity to ensure that members’ attention is drawn to those parts of the report which refer to the Liberal Party’s bill which says that such provisions raise issues about whether the parties to such proceedings receive a fair trial. It continues on page 67:
To depart from the rules of evidence is to put aside a system which is calculated to produce a body of proof which has rational probative force, as Evatt J. pointed out, though in a dissenting judgment, in The King v. War Pensions Entitlement Appeals Tribunal …
I think these comments in the scrutiny of bills committee report really go to the heart of the debate today about this legislation and reinforce the position the government has taken on this legislation. I quote Justice Evatt, as referred to in Mr Stefaniak’s scrutiny of bills committee report. It says:
Some stress has been laid by the present respondents upon the provision that the Tribunal is not, in the hearing of appeals, ‘bound by any rules of evidence.’ Neither it is. But this does not mean that all rules of evidence may be ignored as of no account. After all, they represent the attempt made, through many generations, to evolve a method of inquiry best calculated to prevent error and elicit truth. No
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .