Page 3629 - Week 09 - Tuesday, 23 August 2011
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A range of transitional and consequential amendments are also made, most notably that the FOI regulation 1991 is amended to exempt the Solicitor-General from the FOI act in relation to documents relating to the Solicitor-General’s functions as counsel and extends to JACS in relation to those documents.
The scrutiny committee drew attention to the provisions allowing the executive to make transitionary regulations effectively amending the statute, thus amounting to an inappropriate delegation of legislative powers. This is sometimes described as a Henry VIII clause, and I know Mr Hargreaves has particular views about Henry VIII clauses. In this case it seems that it is not a significant stepping over the mark, but it is something that we in this place should be more mindful of as it is becoming a more common practice.
That said, I think this is an unexceptional bill. There are a couple of things that can be done to make it better, and I will talk about that at more length in the detail stage. I question the minister’s priorities in this. There are many other weighty matters that could and should be dealt with by this department, and creating another element of bureaucracy and a new title should not be the highest priority of this minister. That said, we will be agreeing to the passage of this bill.
MR RATTENBURY (Molonglo) (10.15): The Greens will be supporting this bill. It creates for the first time the position of Solicitor-General for the ACT. As the attorney has noted previously, we are the only Australian jurisdiction currently without such an officer to represent us in court. Until now, the most important legal work that the territory has become involved in has been carried out by the ACT’s Chief Solicitor. But with the growing complexity of legal work, it has become apparent that, in order for the ACT’s interests to best be represented at the national level in the best possible way, we, too, need a Solicitor-General.
Importantly, the bill enables the two roles of the Chief Solicitor and the Solicitor-General to be filled by the same person. The Greens believe this is a sensible approach to the issue, given the territory’s size. Whilst it has become apparent we would be better served by having a Solicitor-General represent us in court, a full-time position is probably not warranted at this point in time. In the future this situation may change and it may become necessary to appoint a full-time Solicitor-General. The bill caters for this situation in the future and allows two people to fill the two positions. That will be an issue for the government of the day to monitor and address if and when it becomes necessary.
The bill also empowers the Attorney-General to issue legal services directions to lawyers acting on the territory’s behalf. As Mrs Dunne has foreshadowed, the Canberra Liberals have some amendments to clarify that, and the Greens will be supporting those amendments. But I will speak to those amendments further when they come up. Overall, the Greens support the intent of this bill and we look forward to supporting it today.
MR CORBELL (Molonglo—Attorney-General, Minister for the Environment and Sustainable Development, Minister for Territory and Municipal Services and Minister
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