Page 892 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 25 July 1989
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proceedings. The statement just read to you and the speech just made by my colleague Carmel Maher were very eloquent. I thought, "There is a lay person speaking about the exact concerns in the community". It was a speech reflecting her own views; the views that she stuck to very solidly, very persuasively and forcefully throughout the life of this short committee. If anyone is to be complimented, apart from the committee staff, I would like to compliment my colleague Carmel Maher for putting up with the detail, the "lawyerisation" and the conflicting pushes and pulls of this committee.
Mr Speaker, this committee and the history of this Bill exemplify very clearly why from day one we should have had a legal and constitutional subcommittee advising this Assembly. This Bill has been pushed and pulled around in the public domain. There have been some very learned submissions and I compliment the ACT Bar Association; the Australian Labor Party, with its very able submission done by my friend Bill Redpath; the Hon. Justice Elizabeth Evatt, President of the Law Reform Commission of Australia; the very quick and well-thought-out submission by the Trades and Labour Council forwarded to us by David Ritchie; the submissions forwarded by the many lay persons and other professionals; and the oral submissions made at short notice by such parties as the Civil Liberties Council.
Mr Speaker, much of that learned information and learned argument was, regrettably, based on what was already shifting sand. The Bill was not what we were written to about. That, once again, exemplifies why we do need a legal screening committee of this Assembly. The suggestions made, for example, by the Hon. Justice Elizabeth Evatt, a great lawyer in this country, went wider than what I would countenance and were based on concepts of Mr Stefaniak's proposal which he had already conceded, under pressure, would change. Similarly, the submission by the Australian Labor Party branch, probably the most learned submission of all to be put to us, graphically illustrated the failure of communication between what would have been a legal and constitutional subcommittee of this Assembly and the legal advisers to the Chief Minister, who, we must concede, is without legal assistance in her ventures.
Mr Berry: We are lucky.
MR COLLAERY: Mr Speaker, Mr Berry says we are lucky. The only difference, of course, is that firemen are paid more than lawyers in this town. The ALP's submission dealt with a number of issues which had already been knocked solidly on the head by me and my colleague Ms Maher. I am sure Mr Stefaniak, who respects above all numbers in this life, would have conceded that at the start.
So really there has been a lot of pointless debate. There has been a lot of breast-beating about the civil liberties issues. I would remind members of the Assembly that the
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