Page 907 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 25 July 1989
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MR HUMPHRIES (9.22): I have amendments to move to clauses 19 and 28 which are similar. Firstly, I move in relation to clause 19:
Page 11, omit paragraph (3)(c).
These parts of these clauses require that, in order to obtain permits - in one case, a research permit and, in another case, a permit to use unregistered pesticides - a person has to satisfy a number of conditions. One of those conditions is that he or she is, in the opinion of a public servant, "a fit and proper person to hold a restricted permit" or "a research permit", as the case may be.
The term "a fit and proper person" causes the Opposition some concern. Is it meant that the person has had some previous experience with pesticides? Is it intended that he or she has some particular qualifications before coming to use those particular pesticides? Is it meant that, if the public servant concerned is not particularly friendly or does not like the look of the face of the person concerned, a person is not a fit and proper person?
I can see no reason, Mr Speaker, why this Bill should endow a public servant with the capacity to decide, on a very nebulous basis, that a person is not a fit and proper person to hold a restricted permit. Rather, I would say that the Government should produce conditions within this clause which clearly set out the grounds on which it wishes to refuse an application for a permit.
I have had some possible situations put to me; for example, the person concerned does not understand the full nature of the pesticide he or she is going to use; the person concerned is feeble-minded; the person concerned is a notorious breacher of equivalent legislation in other States.
If the Government is concerned about these things it should say so expressly . It should not provide to a public servant a blanket right to say, "You, sir" or "You, madam, are not a fit and proper person to hold a permit of this kind". It is simply too vague. As I understand it, the Senate Standing Committee on Scrutiny of Bills is attempting to weed out these sorts of blanket administrative discretions and I see no reason why a discretion of that kind should be administered in the ACT. I do not believe that people should have to run the gauntlet of the whims of a public servant in order to be able to obtain what, in some cases, will be necessary to carry out their livelihood under this Act.
There are other provisions within these clauses that impose heavy restrictions on people making applications. I see no reason why they should not be similarly set out in the case of other conditions that might apply to a person who wishes to apply.
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