Page 1070 - Week 03 - Thursday, 26 February 2009
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provisions in the forensic evidence act that may also need to be amended but did not come to our attention because they were not being amended. I decided that I literally did not have the time to survey the rest of the legislation to see whether we needed to insert “on reasonable grounds” in other clauses so as to create consistency.
The scrutiny of bills committee has pointed out that there is an inconsistency. In some places the magistrate has to be satisfied and in other places the reasonable grounds test is there. I do applaud the scrutiny committee adviser for pointing this out. I am a person who is strongly in favour of consistent language throughout legislation. It may in fact be an exercise for another omnibus bill to be passed to ensure that there is consistent language throughout. The only reason I did not go down the path that Mr Rattenbury did was that I felt I did not have the time available to me to do that work. I support Mr Rattenbury’s proposal to put the reasonable grounds provisions in those schedules that are available to us today.
Amendments agreed to.
Schedule 1, part 1.3, as amended, agreed to.
Schedule 1, parts 1.4 to 1.6, by leave, taken together and agreed to.
Schedule 1, part 1.7.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (12.05): The Liberal opposition will be opposing this clause to make the point that we think this should have been dealt with in a different way. It also gives me an opportunity to address some of the ludicrous things said by the attorney and to comment on some of the others.
In relation to some of the comments that Mr Rattenbury made, I am concerned that the doctrine of ministerial responsibility has had its bar lowered again because at a very early stage in this Assembly a leading member of the Assembly has said that ministerial responsibility does not go to a range of issues and the minister is not responsible for administrative minutiae in his department.
This is not administrative minutiae. This is something that the minister does. It is not something that some junior official has delegation to do and the minister may never see. This is something that the minister signs off on. The first law officer, in this case, signs off on this. He is responsible to ensure that when he is signing off on something he has got it right.
You asked the question rhetorically, “What would I have done?” What would Shane Rattenbury have done if he had been confronted with this on the day? Without any disrespect to you, Mr Rattenbury, I put you in the case of being a newbie. You have not had the experience that this minister admits to of thousands of statutory appointments. He has been a minister for seven years. This minister of seven years, who by his own admission—in his own defence—says he has signed off on thousands of statutory appointments, should not have made this unlawful error. That is the long and short of it. I do not mean any disrespect to Mr Rattenbury, but he is not someone who has been a minister for seven years.
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