Page 421 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 13 March 2007
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Mr Speaker, these amendments were dealt with by me in the substantive debate last week but, due to an error in the amendments that were circulated, I adjourned the debate last week to permit members to look at these amendments. As members would now be familiar with, I am sure, the amendment that was omitted from the amendments circulated last week is about proposed new section 69A, omitting the word “affairs” and substituting the word “information” in the heading. This is a minor amendment, due to an oversight in the previous version. I am pleased to have given members additional time to look at the amendments.
These amendments deal primarily with matters around issues raised by the scrutiny of bills committee and, in particular, deal with the issue of ensuring that reference is still available to the AAT in particular circumstances, which was identified by the scrutiny of bills committee as an omission, one which I am pleased, as a result of that, we have been able to rectify. I commend the amendments to the Assembly.
MR STEFANIAK (Ginninderra—Leader of the Opposition) (10.38): Mr Speaker, the opposition will be agreeing to these amendments. The thrust of the amendments, effectively, is to be found in amendment No 2, which will enable an appeal on the grounds to see whether, in fact, the determination was reasonable. It does not affect the ultimate decision, and people may well have issues with that. This amendment may go a bit of the way in terms of allaying some fears. At least the reasonableness of a minister’s decision can be assessed. But, to all intents and purposes, it is a bit like a reference appeal which the Crown can take, for example, in the Supreme Court if it does not like a ruling or what actually occurred in, say, a criminal trial which the Crown would allege the judge got wrong.
Unlike other jurisdictions, it does not cause a fresh trial but, on a point of law, a superior court—the Court of Appeal in that case—would be able to rule on the issue and that would then establish a precedent in terms of future matters. But it would not affect the decision. In a criminal situation, that would be a decision whereby either a jury or a judge directing a jury acquits. Reference appeals are used sparingly for that reason: they are a lot of trouble and do not actually affect the end result, but do lead to some precedent. So the best this will do perhaps is lead to some precedents and guidance for ministers in terms of what is reasonable and what is not, but it will not affect the actual decision if the minister gets it awfully wrong.
I think there could well be a very strong argument that this provision could go further, but this amendment is better than nothing at all in terms of having at least some degree of accountability for a minister in terms of an independent body assessing whether the minister’s decision was reasonable. I suppose that would be of some benefit, albeit limited. Accordingly, we have no problem with supporting that. I take the opportunity to thank the minister for the fairly thorough briefing I did have in relation to these matters from his officers and also the two or three days warning, at least, of these amendments. I note that the other one was a very technical one.
The minister, I think quite properly, adjourned the proceedings last week. I think that other ministers should take a leaf out of his book on that one, because it is not every day of the week that we actually see ministers of this government adjourning a matter so that members can have a decent look at it, even if it is fairly minor. Ministers have
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