Page 5576 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 9 December 2009
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I must say that I do accept that this is a significant movement from the position originally put and it is a movement that has been achieved through a good process, except, I think, for this particular provision.
I am something of a purist in relation to these issues of separations of responsibility. I believe it does blur the accepted norms or methods of accountability. It is a blurring of responsibility between the executive and the legislature, a significant blurring. A person is essentially chosen—even though nominated, as Mr Seselja says, by a minister—selected, agreed, approved or appointed by the legislature.
I raise those as, I think, fundamental issues of governance and good governance. The government will not support that particular proposed subsection, subsection (4). We will support all other subsections. I probably need to go to my amendment. I have a circulated amendment which proposes removing that subsection.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (4:21): I think one of the most interesting parts of the discussion during the committee process and on this legislation is: what is the appropriate independent review point in this legislation? At the start, on behalf of the Greens, I did express some concern about the role of the Auditor-General. I thought the evidence we had through the committee process and the discussion that went on was a very good discussion, moving through the idea of a panel to ultimately the single independent expert, which I think did provide a level of efficiency and simple cost-saving which made sense.
From that point of view, the Greens are quite happy to support the proposal put forward by Mr Seselja. We think it is a good outcome. The amendment will assign responsibility of the review to an independent expert and I think the appointment by two-thirds of the Assembly is valuable, because it gives the expert the endorsement of the Assembly to go about their business and review the proposed campaigns and make the appropriate recommendations, knowing that they have the capacity to make fearless recommendations and are backed by a majority of the Assembly. I believe that is valuable.
I think Mr Stanhope has made some very interesting points. He is going to give me cause to now add to my summer reading list, to go away and have a bit of a think about this and, I guess, do a bit more reading on the separation of powers. I must confess that had not occurred to me before and I will undertake to go and have a bit more of a read on that. But I think at this stage we will proceed on this basis. I think we have found a good way through here.
MR SESELJA (Molonglo—Leader of the Opposition) (4.23): Just briefly, I thank members for their support; Mr Stanhope, for his support for most of it; and the Greens, for their support for the entire amendment. I think this has been an important part of the process. We started with one person, the Auditor-General; we moved to a panel; and we are back to one person, though not the Auditor-General. So all the options are being considered. It has been done in quite a thorough way. I am very pleased with the outcome.
We accepted the evidence that the Auditor-General gave to the committee and we accepted the results of the committee process. There is a need for negotiation in
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