Page 1437 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 17 April 1991
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SUBORDINATE LAWS (AMENDMENT) BILL 1991
Debate resumed from 20 March 1991, on motion by Mr Connolly:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR COLLAERY (Attorney-General) (11.27): Mr Connolly first introduced the Subordinate Laws (Amendment) Bill 1991 on 13 February. Due to effective cross-chamber workings, and the support of the Government Law Office, we are in a position to say that we support Mr Connolly's Bill at this stage. I am pleased to see in the chamber today Professor Whalan, who gives such noble support, both to the Bills committee process in the other house, and here, to our Assembly. It is with considerable pleasure that I rise to support a reform which surely should be dear to the heart of any adviser to a Bills committee. I do not really want to say too much, Mr Speaker. The Connolly Bill is a landmark in the process of parliamentary accountability in our new chamber. Quite frankly, I wish I had brought it in. But Mr Connolly has got the credit for taking the initiative. Good on him, and good on the Bills committee.
Mr Speaker, there was a proposal from Mr Connolly that the deemed disallowance provision should be incorporated in the ACT planning package. My advice from the Law Office is that that proposal should be rejected. My advice is that it is not the case, as Mr Connolly appears to have suggested, that the Commonwealth planning legislation includes provisions for deemed disallowance. It does not. Section 21 of the Australian Capital Territory (Planning and Land Management) Act 1988 provides that, after the responsible Minister has approved the draft National Capital Plan, the Minister is required to publish a notice of the approval in the Commonwealth Gazette. The National Capital Plan takes effect on publication of the notice of approval. Section 22(1) of the Commonwealth Act provides that the National Capital Plan shall be laid before both houses of the Parliament within six sitting days after the plan has taken effect. Section 22(2) of the same Act provides that either house of the parliament may then pass a resolution disallowing the plan, or part of the plan, within six sitting days after the plan has been laid before that house.
Another example is in section 12A of the Seat of Government (Administration) Act 1910. The original provision as to disallowance in respect of the City Plan, inserted in 1930, provided that an instrument could be disallowed by either house within 15 sitting days after the instrument had been laid before it. This was amended in 1959 to reduce the period of time from 15 to six sitting days. In delivering the second reading speech in respect of that amendment, the then Minister for the Interior and Minister for Works, Mr Freeth, said:
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