Page 1486 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 10 May 2006
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DR FOSKEY: We use the work of community organisations to inform any legislation or motions we develop. Reporting on it just seems fair enough, because that reveals the thinking behind our bills; it reveals whose interests we have at heart when we put that into a bill. Those omissions, as I have already mentioned, reveal whom we have not consulted. The government and the opposition would then be absolutely right in saying, “But you did not speak to those people”. Therefore, you, who might see those people more as your constituents, will feel that you can find out what they think and present those views to the Assembly in the robust discussions that we must still have.
As I understand it, some reporting on consultation is required to go to cabinet when bills are submitted. While this bill asks for a report on external consultation, if it is conducted it would by no means require a great deal more work of the government in particular. In rejecting this small improvement to our legislative rules, the government is demonstrating once again that it does not seem to want people to know what it is doing, whom it is working with or listening to in doing it and why it makes the decisions it makes.
We have to use whatever processes we have at our disposal: talking to staff members, asking questions in the Assembly, asking questions on notice and trying to elicit information from debate. That is not so easy when we have a majority government which can close down debate when it feels like it and simply not answer questions. We have seen that time and time again. Perhaps there is reluctance by the Assembly for the community to know which groups have been considered fit to discuss legislation and assist in its formation.
This bill requires the proponents of all bills to table explanatory statements with the bills. Explanatory statements are the key guides to understanding the intention of legislation and are of great assistance to the courts and others when dealing with it. While a tabling speech is also a guide to the intent of a bill, it is rarely as clear, as useful or as rationally set out as an explanatory statement. It seems to me that, if a member is prepared to draft long and complex legislation with the presumption that it might well become part of the existing law, then he or she ought to take on the responsibility of formally explaining their intent. If the thought and the work go into the bill it can be written in an explanatory statement.
As Mr Stefaniak pointed out, parliamentary counsel drafts the bills but members explain what they want in the bills. I believe this is a small step to preparing an explanatory statement; it does not have to be complex. My office is committed to producing them. Of course talking to each other is an important part of the work, but it is not always politically wise to do this—and there is often not enough time to do it. We have seen bills presented one day and debated three days later, in which case we need all the help we can get in the explanatory statement to deal with them as properly as they should be dealt with.
Debate can still occur and standing committees can still do their work. We do not believe a report on bodies consulted is any substitute for that. In fact, we might find that debate and committee deliberations are better informed. I think it is quite disrespectful of the process to dodge the work involved in writing an explanatory statement simply for the sake of putting a bill before the Assembly for rhetorical purposes. That is the other
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