Page 1627 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 18 May 1994
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Mr Moore has circulated an amendment to the Assembly, but I do not understand what the policy behind the amendment is. The Law Office has been working on this for some time. I have asked them to run through every Act of the Assembly. I am not yet in a position to say which are Executive appointments and which are ministerial appointments. Which is in and which is out, and is there any rationale or commonsense behind which is a ministerial appointment and which is an Executive appointment? It turns out that the Executive does fix the problem of the judges and magistrates, but beyond that there seems to be no rhyme or reason as to which is in and which is out.
The Government is not stalling for time. We have again said, and we say it publicly, that, if we act rashly in the period before we sort out the details of this Bill, clearly our heads are on the chopping block, because the majority of members of this Assembly might say, "Look, Minister, we think that you have acted improperly there and have tried to thwart the will of the Assembly that wants a role on appointments". I have said that before, and I say it again, to put it on the public record.
This is an important issue. This is pretty landmark legislation. I do not want to recanvass the in-principle debate; but Mr Moore, I am sure, would proudly say that what he has done here is a first for an Australian parliament - indeed, a first for a Commonwealth country parliament. It is a significant piece of reform; the parliament is asserting its ability to get in and to vet appointments. We accept that, and we accept that it is the will of the parliament that it do that. What we urge members to do is to clarify what we want to cover. We have tried to play this game fairly. We have written to all members saying, "Can we get some discussion going on what the policy should be?".
I have to say to members that the Bill as currently drafted, with the amendment that Mr Moore has circulated, does not clarify who is in or who is out. It adopts a fairly arbitrary process of Executive appointment versus ministerial appointment. It probably opens the field for some very interesting and constructive legal arguments around the self-government Act. Members who have acted as Ministers in the past and have looked at the self-government Act know that there are some peculiarities about when a Minister is acting and when the Executive is acting. Most appointments, while they are made by Ministers, are endorsed by the Executive. The practice that we have - no doubt it was the practice you had when you were in office - is that major ministerial appointments, not the dog catcher, go to the Cabinet. So what is a ministerial appointment and what is an Executive appointment? There may be room for argument. We are not acting in bad faith here. We have shown our good faith by writing to all members and saying, "Can we clarify what the policy is?". I am happy to talk to members about the policy. The Government cannot support the detail stage of the Bill today because, quite frankly, we do not know what it means.
MR KAINE (10.45): Madam Speaker, I think that Mr Connolly's response to this Bill at this point of the debate is one of the most astonishing I have heard in five years of self-government. Mr Connolly believes that he has solved the problem by writing members of the Assembly a letter about a Bill that is Mr Moore's. Quite frankly, Madam Speaker, if I want to make some comment about the content of this Bill, I will talk to Mr Moore about it. I do not see that I have any obligation to talk to Mr Connolly. His responsibility was to come here, knowing that this debate was to
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Speeches . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .