Page 4077 - Week 11 - Thursday, 21 September 2017
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(8) The Clerk is also authorised to provide to the independent legal arbiter and to all Members, submissions from any Member in relation to the claim of privilege.
(9) The independent legal arbiter is to be appointed by the Speaker and must be a retired Supreme Court, Federal Court or High Court Judge.
(10) A report from the independent legal arbiter is to be lodged with the Clerk and:
(a) made available only to Members of the Assembly; and
(b) not published or copied without an order of the Assembly.
(11) If the independent legal arbiter upholds the claim of privilege, the Clerk shall return the document or documents to the Chief Minister’s Directorate.
(12) If the independent legal arbiter does not uphold the claim of privilege, the Clerk will table the document or documents that has been the subject of the claim of privilege. In the event that the Assembly is not sitting, the Clerk is authorised to provide the document or documents to any Member upon request, however, the document or documents do not attract absolute privilege until tabled by the Clerk at the next sitting of the Assembly.
(13) Other persons requesting to examine the document or documents may do so with the Clerk maintaining a register showing the name of any person examining the document or documents tabled under this order.”.
Standing order 213A was adopted in this place as a temporary measure in 2009 and embedded in the standing orders in 2012. In the time that I have been in this place, it has only been utilised three times, but the most recent episode highlighted the need to provide more clarity to that standing order, which has an important role to play in this place.
Through a review process, I wrote to the leaders of the three parties, Mr Rattenbury, the Chief Minister and Mr Coe, and also had discussions within the admin and procedure committee. The key changes are that it does tidy it up. It makes the timing clearer; there is clarity about the timing of the process. And, importantly, I think the most significant change is that 213A is brought into the chamber as a motion on notice. That is, I believe, a significant and important change to this motion. I commend it to the Assembly.
MRS DUNNE (Ginninderra) (11.33): The Canberra Liberals are broadly in support of these changes. I am personally a little agnostic about whether there needs to be a notice of motion to activate standing order 213A, but the Assembly, of course, is always in the hands of the Assembly, and the suspension of standing orders is always
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