Page 4501 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Senate style confirmation process.” So it is now clear that the attorney has gone around and got into people’s ears and spread misinformation.
The attorney stood up here and created a confection, a complete and utter confection, about this process, which is exactly the same process that is set out in the Legislation Act or the Financial Management Act for the appointment of all sorts of people to all sorts of statutory bodies, including the Auditor-General, board members of Actew, board members of every other TOC in the place, the Legal Aid Commission—all sorts of people go through this process. All the members of the ACAT already go through this process, except for the presidential members.
This bill simply adds a statutory form of consultation which is no different from any other statutory form of consultation for statutory appointments in the ACT. In the 20 years of self-government, through the statutory appointment process no committee has ever thought that we should seek the views of someone outside the committee about the merit of an appointment, whether it be to the board of Actew or to some lesser body or to some greater body; whether it has been the appointment of the Auditor-General or the appointment of any other person. This has not happened, simply because it cannot.
The proposition put forward today by the Attorney-General that in this case, in the case of a judicial appointment or appointment to the magistracy or to the presidency of the ACAT, the committee would suddenly take it upon itself to do things which it does not have the power to do is nothing short of dishonest. It is a dishonest representation of what committees can do and what is the intent of this bill.
It is unfortunate, deeply unfortunate, that the Greens, who since this issue was raised and before this bill was formally introduced have shown support for this measure, should wait until today and then change their minds. It shows either bad faith or inexperience; either way it does not matter. Mr Rattenbury assured me this morning that this was not a matter of bad faith. But let us look at the track record. The track record was that Mr Rattenbury and his staff, on a number of occasions, gave a commitment to me or my staff that they would support this bill—until the day that they actually came to vote for it.
This is not the only time that this has happened. In my experience on legislation in relation to unit titles legislation, the Greens made commitments and then they reneged on them. There have been other occasions where the Greens have made commitments to members of this place about what they were going to do and then reneged on them. This may be inexperience, but you have now been here a year and it is about time that you learnt how to act honourably on these matters. If you do not know what you are going to do—
Mr Corbell: I raise a point of order, Madam Assistant Speaker. That is an imputation, a reflection on the character of certain members of this place, notably members of the crossbench. It is disorderly and Mrs Dunne should be asked to withdraw.
MADAM ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ms Le Couteur): Mrs Dunne?
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .