Page 2785 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 29 June 2011
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this government will, after that vote, move a motion to refer this bill for incorporation in the standing committee’s inquiry. We would argue that that is the place where this bill should be dealt with entirely.
If we get to the point that it passes the in-principle stage today, this bill must be referred to that committee. It cannot be treated in isolation when the bill seeks to legislate a particular part of the inquiry. Then bring that inquiry back to this place and allow comprehensive debate on all aspects of electoral reform, as was intended by the establishment of that inquiry in the first place.
That is what needs to happen today. I hope that the Assembly sees merit in that proposal.
DR BOURKE (Ginninderra) (11.06): I am aghast at the prospect that the Assembly is contemplating retrospective criminality in a bill. It is a fundamental contravention of what you would describe as human rights principles. Human rights principles are that—principles. The purpose of them is that you do not melt when it gets tough and you do not give them away because it is convenient. This is what particularly concerns me about the proposal for retrospective criminality. I condemn that move.
MR SMYTH (Brindabella) (11.07), in reply: I thank members for their contributions to the debate, as varied as they have been. I thank members for their support to suspend standing orders to bring this bill on. It is unusual to do a bill quickly in this manner but it is important that we do not allow the gazumping of long-term reform by anybody, irrespective of what party or what leaning they have, when we do have a significant body of work being done by the Standing Committee on Justice and Community Safety.
I think we need to start with Mr Corbell’s submission to this debate. You have to question everything the minister says when he cannot even get dates right off a website. The minister said that the inquiry into campaign finance reform had not even closed submissions and that they closed on 30 July this year. He was only out by a year. They have closed—30 July 2010. So you have to take everything that Mr Corbell says with a grain of salt. Take a grain of salt with everything he says, when he just needs to go to the website to confirm his facts.
There is an issue with retrospectivity. This is not going to make anything that happened before last Wednesday a criminal offence. Indeed, when I tabled the bill I said that moving forward—I hate to use the words “moving forward”, but as we go forward—on electoral reform, as of today there is a line in the sand. We are saying do not do anything after this point in time that will offend this bill. So I think the retrospectivity argument is quite spurious. We have not gone back and put in place double jeopardy. We have not gone back 10 years and said we are looking at all the donations made over the last 10 years. We are saying that from this point in time forward we have concerns.
It is not unusual to have interim measures, and everyone knows that when there is expectation of reform it has an effect. If there is a tax relief reform coming that might be announced in the budget that starts on 1 July, then people put off their decisions
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