Page 3504 - Week 08 - Thursday, 18 August 2011
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However, I would like to place on the record one small but important point. There are times in the explanatory statement when the conclusion is made that the amendment does not interfere with any human rights. However, there is no supporting information to support the conclusion.
For example, the changes to the Associations Incorporation Act are said to “not affect human rights”. I happen to agree with the conclusion, but I think that in the interests of transparency, the explanatory statement could include the reasons and information used in making that finding. It is a small but important point, and I will write to the attorney to suggest some ways to address this.
The second matter I would like to discuss is the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act amendments. As Mrs Dunne touched on, the changes relate to the legal process required for parents to have the name of their child changed. An order to change the name of a child can be made either by a commonwealth court or by an ACT court. However, the legislation currently states that the registrar can only make the change following an ACT court order. This was an unintended loophole that required the parent to go through two court processes when a single court order was all that was originally intended by the legislation.
Such a seemingly simple mix-up has had costly repercussions for parents who, at the end of a long court process, have been told they need to make another application to the ACT courts. This has been the case even where the commonwealth court has explicitly made the order that the registrar change the name.
This matter was flagged with my office by a constituent some months ago, and I forwarded their concerns on to the attorney. In light of Mrs Dunne’s comments, I suspect it may well have been the same constituent. It seems likely to be the case. On behalf of the constituent and other people caught out by the drafting error, I would like to thank the attorney for bringing forward the change. It is a reminder of how important the drafting of legislation is and how a small error can have costly and unintended repercussions for the community. It is important that bills like this, by their nature, are able to correct some of those things in a relatively straightforward way. In conclusion, the Greens support the bill.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development, Minister for Territory and Municipal Services and Minister for Police and Emergency Services) (12:26), in reply: I thank members for their support of the bill. It would be remiss of me if I did not just briefly reflect on the approach adopted by the Liberal Party in relation to this, and indeed many other pieces of legislation from the justice portfolio.
The speech we heard from Mrs Dunne this morning was pretty much as good as it gets in terms of opposition support for a government bill—the sort of grudging, snide assertion: “We all knew this had to be done two years ago and you haven’t done it and you have been so slow, but it’s still a good idea and we’ll support the bill.” Quite frankly, I think Mrs Dunne deserves to show a little more respect for the work of my directorate and my directorate’s officers, for the very significant work they put in every day in updating and maintaining the contemporary nature of the territory statute
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