Page 4506 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 14 October 2009

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that they should do so. Just as in any other way the material discussion in relation to the bill would inform the judicial process about how a bill should be interpreted, this would be extrinsic material that would have to be taken into account by any committee.

I cannot imagine any committee secretary or any Clerk of this Assembly who would not advise a committee that they did not have the power to do this, on the basis of the conversation in this place today. There is no precedent for it; in fact there is precedent against it. The whole tenor of the conversation here today, where every party represented say that they would not want this to happen, would be brought to bear upon that matter if there were some rogue committee chair, heaven help us, who decided that they might like to have US Senate style confirmation hearings for judges. It could not happen. They would be advised against it very strongly, and as a result of that it would not happen.

Therefore, the whole creation that the attorney has put forward in a desperate attempt to scare the Greens out of their original position is seen for what it is: a confection. And the Greens have swallowed it lock, stock and barrel. As a result of this, while there is some merit, and that merit has been reflected in the views of the Law Society, in that some advertising of the matter, some wide consultation, which would be set out in this notifiable instrument, is an improvement in the process, I think it is ironic that everybody now gets consulted except the Legislative Assembly.

No-one in the Legislative Assembly wants to veto the power of the attorney and the executive in general to make these appointments. It is just an important process in openness and transparency, and you have to wonder why the Labor Party do not want this. Well, I know why the Labor Party do not want this: really, they do want to make decisions in dark corridors and in dank cellars, as they have done in relation to the Freedom of Information Act. But I do question the motivations of the Greens who suddenly have decided that openness and transparency is not quite something that they are absolutely comfortable with.

The Liberal opposition will not be supporting the government’s amendments moved together.

Question put:

That Mr Corbell’s amendments Nos 1 to 9 be agreed to.

The Assembly voted—

Question so resolved in the affirmative.

Bill, as a whole, as amended, agreed to.

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