Page 5157 - Week 13 - Thursday, 29 November 2018
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MR BARR: Yes, will not be able to, Madam Speaker.
MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong) (6.22): We will be supporting this. I think it is one of those things where the perception of these matters is quite important. I will also take the opportunity to speak to the next amendment, because that then requires that a person cannot be appointed as a CEO if they have been a member of a political party in the past five years. We will not be supporting that. I think there is a distinction there where we need to acknowledge that in the public service people are allowed to belong to political parties.
There is an extensive process in this legislation for people to have to declare potential conflicts of interest, just as people do in all sorts of jobs. I think that distinction is the right one to draw here. It should not be the case that people cannot have views on things, but we certainly need to be very clear about this if they do. I think we have the appropriate provisions later in the legislation to deal with those matters. We are supporting Mr Coe’s amendment No 16.
Amendment agreed to.
MR COE (Yerrabi—Leader of the Opposition) (6.23): I move amendment No 17 circulated in my name [see schedule 1 at page 5202]. I thank Mr Rattenbury for speaking to this one earlier. In actual fact, I think he gave a compelling case why this amendment should be supported, because he spoke of the need to ensure that the perception and the standards of the commission are upheld. The reality is that if we have people who have been members of a political party working in this commission, I think we risk tainting its reputation.
We are not actually supporting them in their role if we allow one, two or several of their colleagues to have been members of a political party with an obvious political bias, a declared political bias—this is what being in a political party is—in the past five years. We are not saying “ever”. We are not saying this in respect of someone who was a member of a political party during university. We are just saying that if you have been a political party member in the past five years, you probably should not be in an organisation called the integrity commission that is, in part, overseeing politicians. We think it is pretty reasonable.
MR BARR (Kurrajong—Chief Minister, Treasurer, Minister for Social Inclusion and Equality, Minister for Tourism and Special Events and Minister for Trade, Industry and Investment) (6.24): I guess this is an issue where a balance must be struck. The Human Rights Commission has been quite clear in their advice that precluding someone on the basis of a political party membership would be breaching their democratic rights. It is a line ball call; I acknowledge that. We fell on the side of agreeing with a ban of former politicians but we do not agree in this instance. So we will not be supporting Mr Coe’s amendment.
MR RATTENBURY (Kurrajong) (6.25): I will add a couple of further comments in light of Mr Coe’s observations. I think this is where you have to look at this piece of legislation in totality. I think you can be potentially outraged by this line ball decision,
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