Page 1947 - Week 07 - Wednesday, 15 June 1994
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That means treating these sorts of arrangements with great care and ensuring that when we ask questions about an appointment we do so in a responsible fashion. That will be the hallmark of our approach to this matter, and I hope that on the next occasion on which the Labor Party finds itself in opposition it takes a similarly restrained approach. I indicate that I also support the amendments that are being put forward.
Ms Follett: We play the ball.
MR HUMPHRIES: Indeed, and so do we. Every appointment we have criticised has been criticised outside this place as well by other people - not just by partisan commentators but by those in the media and elsewhere who believed that there was inappropriateness in those appointments. I refer, for example, to Mr Aliprandi's proposed appointment to the Pharmacy Board, which was criticised not just by the Liberal Party but by many others in the broader community, particularly in the pharmacy community. If you people imagine that these sorts of things are stirred along by politicians and are not the result of some concern by the community, then you seriously underestimate the extent to which the community does understand what is going on in these processes and is upset by them. You know that that was an inappropriate appointment, and that is why, presumably, you backed off. I think that in the future we will see a different ethos in the ACT, and we welcome this Bill as a way of achieving that better ethos.
MR MOORE (11.27): Madam Speaker, I think it is very important to reiterate the workings of the process so that members can understand that the Bill is designed to avoid the very thing we have just heard. The system is that a Minister, in deciding that he wishes to make an appointment, can refer the person or a range of persons to that committee. In other words, the consultation process is there with the committee. There is no compulsion on the Minister, once that consultation process has occurred, to accept the view of the committee; rather, the appointment is made and then members have the opportunity to move disallowance if they so wish.
Where a committee has approved an appointment as part of a consultation process and then a member of that group moves disallowance, I would say that the mud is on the face of the group that agreed to the appointment in the first place. That is the whole point of running through a process like that rather than saying that we ought to allow the committee to decide. The Minister still makes the appointment after a consultation process, but under clause 5 of this Bill it is a disallowable instrument. I appreciate the change of tone here. I hope that it will not be used for political point scoring. That is not the intention of the Bill. Rather, the existence of the Bill should avoid the circumstances we have heard about in the chamber in the last little while.
The other issue is that members in this chamber, by and large, have dealt very carefully with that power of privilege. No doubt the issue - such as the one that has been drawn to our attention in the Federal Parliament just recently - as to whether it has been used or misused is one for debate. I believe that members in this chamber will not go for the open slather approach but, in the same way as they deal with the power of privilege, will use this power very carefully to ensure the best possible appointments for the good of the people of the Territory. That is what this Bill is about.
Clause agreed to.
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