Page 2131 - Week 07 - Thursday, 16 June 1994
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were not liable to pay, can just go away and be quiet and we will not say anything about it". I think that, if the people who paid that $530,000, I think it is, had known what the instrument that purported to impose this tax actually said, they would have declined to pay the tax, and they would have been perfectly right to do so.
The Government has a problem. I regret to say that, although it may mean considerable effort on the part of the Government to find out who paid the $530,000 and pay it back, I do not think I have any option but to tell the Chief Minister and the Government that that is what they are going to have to do, because they will not have the support of the Opposition in this matter.
MR STEVENSON (7.49): Governments should not have the power to introduce retrospective laws. It would be interesting to look at whether or not we do. I know that governments do many things, on many of which I would have a different viewpoint as to whether they had that power. I will not mention self-government at this time in any detail. But we cannot have a situation where - - -
Mr Moore: You are saying that you will not mention it. You did mention it.
MR STEVENSON: I said briefly. We cannot have a situation where, when we make a mistake, we can fix it by saying, "The rules that existed are no longer the rules". Say that someone has scored a century and you say, "I am sorry; we got you out first ball". They ask, "But how is that?", and you say, "We are not only the players, we are also the umpire, and we change the rules when we deem it necessary". The justification really does not make any difference. The principle is wrong, has always been wrong and always will be wrong.
We are supposed to set an example to people. We expect people to follow our example in life. Members of parliament should set the highest example of anybody in the community for ethical activities, for moral viewpoints. We have enormous power. We can introduce laws, but we should not be able to introduce laws retrospectively. Whenever a business makes a mistake, they pay for it. There have been literally thousands upon thousands of times in the last year when the Government has said to businesses and individuals in this community, "You have made a mistake, you have been charged, and you have been fined". They cannot say, "That is not fair. Just because we made a mistake, it should not be that way". We have to operate on the same principles as those on which we expect other people to operate. We cannot have a situation where people in Canberra, and around Australia, increasingly feel that there are two rules - rules for the community and rules for politicians - and that they are different. That is not acceptable. It is divisive in this society.
I suppose that one could say in this case that the Chief Minister was ignorant of the law. In other words, the law was different from what we may have wanted it to be and the Chief Minister was ignorant of that, or she would have fixed it up earlier or not done it in the first place. But ignorance of the law, as we know, is no defence. It will eventually become so. One will be able to go before a judge and say, "Judge, I did not know", and the judge will say, "If that is the case, you are exonerated. I can understand if you did not know. With three million laws written in a way that even lawyers have difficulty understanding, that is a fair defence". But it is not held to be so just yet.
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