Page 2857 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 19 September 2006
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usually does not happen. They usually just sail into the sunset, and as soon as they get over the horizon the battleship lets go and you hear a little explosion, you see a bit of flame and that is the end of it. Not so with the ACT’s favourite rugby son.
Mr Speaker, I want to make a couple of points about my service as deputy chair of the legal affairs committee. I spent two terms in this place on the committees of which Bill is currently the chair. I had the interesting time as deputy chair to Paul Osborne and I want to thank him for teaching me how to chair a standing committee—I got so much opportunity to act as a chair that I do not know if I would have been able to do it without his help!
I also have to acknowledge for the record that Bill is currently in his third term on the committee. In earlier times he served on what was probably called the legal affairs committee. I believe that he is the longest serving member of that committee. I spent roughly 6½ years on the committee and I have to say that I had a great relationship with Bill. One of the beaut things about that committee is that it affords members of the Assembly an opportunity to be parliamentarians and not party politicians. That committee is composed of the guardians of the parliamentary process in this place. I can recall many of the conferences on the scrutiny of bills and subordinate legislation.
I congratulate the committee on having Stephen Argument look at subordinate legislation. Celeste Italiano and Janice Rafferty and people who went before them—Celia Harsdorf, for example, who was in my view one of the most beautiful ladies of all time—performed this work with help from the textbook written by Stephen Argument. This is a giant leap forward and I congratulate the committee on the step it has taken.
The other thing that I need to say about the parliamentary process is that this committee can distinguish the difference between being a politician, pushing a party line, pushing a government line, opposing it, engaging in a cross-bench activity, or whatever you like. But in my view, the exercise of true democratic representation finds its expression in this committee. Where was the origin of the interstate agreements act, for example? It was the legal affairs committee. Where did the need to put in regulatory impact statements come from? It came from the legal affairs committee in another guise.
The committee is also concerned about the quality of debate. We know, for example, that in primary legislation debate is automatic. But it is not automatic with subordinate legislation. Debate is only enjoined if one of the members of the Assembly moves to disallow. So it is important that the Assembly be aware of what is going on in subordinate legislation, and that is where the scrutiny of bills and subordinate legislation committee can play a role. As I say, they are guardians of things parliamentary in this place.
I welcome Mr Seselja’s appointment to the committee. Mr Seselja was recently exposed to the parliamentary process through a Westminster seminar. He will have gained enormous knowledge and education from that exposure to the Westminster style of democracy and from his talks with members of parliament from other commonwealth countries in the setting of a Westminster democracy. He would have seen how other governments roll over the top of their parliaments in respect of the scrutiny of subordinate legislation. I believe that we in the ACT are unique in the commonwealth in having a scrutiny of bills committee which is representative of all segments of this place
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