Page 1862 - Week 05 - Thursday, 6 May 2010
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On Tuesday I thanked the minister for the briefing that I had and I raised with the minister’s advisers my concerns about what this paragraph means. I think it is extremely convoluted wording and I believe it duplicates what is covered in section 150A(5). If members have not read it, I will refresh their minds. It simply says:
This section applies if the Chief Minister is satisfied that—
(a) an emergency has happened, is happening or is likely to happen …
They are the only options: it is happening, has happened or is likely to happen. I am not sure that the belt-and-braces explanation put forward by the minister is actually belt and braces or whether it is just dead weight legislation.
The officers giving the briefing took on notice my concerns and said that they would get an explanation as to what it meant. I thank the minister for replying. I note that the minister provided a response to my concern about the section. I am just not satisfied with his response because it does not provide any rationale for the wording that is used. I will read the response from the minister:
These sections mirror sections 156(4) and 156(1) in the act (see Attachment B). The difference between the two sections is that 150(A)(1) requires the Chief Minister to be satisfied that an emergency has happened etc but that a declaration of a state of emergency is not required and section 150A(5) sets out the circumstances in which the Chief Minister may be so satisfied.
There is no setting out of the circumstances. It does say that there may be circumstances but the answer given by the minister does not set out the circumstances. It just simply says “or a circumstance that exists”. That is not setting out the circumstances. We have just heard from the minister where he said that he thought there was good reason because it covered every possible ground. Every possible ground is covered in subsection (1)—has happened, is happening, may happen. I think it is quite sad that we put clauses like this into legislation. If something really cannot be explained in quite a simple term, particularly in an act like this, then it quite simply should not be there.
If you want to follow through my logic, proposed subsection (1) provides that the Chief Minister is satisfied that “an emergency has happened, is happening or is likely to happen”.
This is quite clear. The Chief Minister must be satisfied. There is no further advice on how the Chief Minister shall be satisfied. What we need to get to is what does this clause do? I appreciate that it is in the existing act but it does not lay out any of the things that the minister said that it did in the letter back to me. For those reasons, I believe it is a superfluous act. If you look at proposed subsection (1), it covers the three possibilities: is happening, has happened, will happen. There is no further need for this clause.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment, Climate Change and Water, Minister for Energy and Minister for Police and
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