Page 2844 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 19 September 2006
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a little while; they may not have taken much of an active role in their party. They would be in a very different situation to someone who had been a member of a parliament or a legislature. Accordingly, we saw sense in what Dr Foskey had initially proposed—and even the government has—that is, a five-year term.
We are not mindful, however, of supporting the government amendment, which Dr Foskey now agrees with, which only has a 10-year limit on someone who had been a member of a parliament. There is a need for a clean break; there is a need for complete transparency. Accordingly, I commend our amendment to the Assembly.
DR FOSKEY (Molonglo) (10.51): I am withdrawing my amendments that were tabled. This is a result of a conversation that I had, which Mr Stefaniak has already referred to, with the Attorney-General. There was good, helpful negotiation. The amendment that the government tabled on 22 August covers most of my concerns and reduces the potential of that appointment to be more a political appointment than one based on merit. In that instance, I thank the government and Mr Corbell for inviting Mr Stefaniak and me to have real consultation in creating that amendment.
MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella—Minister for the Territory and Municipal Services, Minister for Housing and Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (10.52): The government will not be supporting paragraph (a) of Mr Stefaniak’s amendment. You will find that we are agreed on paragraph (b) of the amendment I am going to seek leave to move on Mr Corbell’s behalf. I think Dr Foskey, the opposition and we are agreed on paragraph (b). We have an issue with paragraph (a) because it amounts to a lifetime ban on appointment as an electoral commissioner of anybody who has been a parliamentarian at all. We do not believe that a lifetime ban is appropriate. A couple of instances come to mind as to why we should not support this and why, in fact, we should support the government amendment, which says that a period of 10 years after that is appropriate.
I draw two things to the attention of the house. The first is that there are some members who are elected to an assembly or to a parliament who only ever serve one term. They never rise further than the backbench—in the case of the federal parliament, they may be a senator—for one reason. In the House of Reps particularly, a person can be a backbencher and be never heard of—ever. In fact, there was an ex-Labor senator who left the fold of the Labor Party after he left the Senate and who went down in history as never having made a speech in the entire time he was in the Senate.
It is a bit hard on people who, as young men or women—let us say in their late 20s—serve one term as an obscure backbencher in the federal parliament, emerge at the age of 30 and then go on to have, for example, quite a distinguished a career in the law and then, at the age of 55, we are not going to consider them for the position of electoral commissioner. That is a bit harsh. These people may very well have completely withdrawn themselves from any political life at all. That is not unheard of if a person had all of their career aspirations of being a lifetime politician dashed at an election. It is not unheard of that people just walk away from the whole concept of politics altogether. It is a little harsh that we say that, if you have ever been a politician or a parliamentarian, you cannot do it. We are proposing, in fact, that 10 years is a reasonable figure. I will be moving that amendment.
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