Page 2320 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 22 June 1994
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For example, whether you work in the Legal Aid Commission or whether you work in the Director of Public Prosecutions' Office, if you are an ASO6 and you are involved in a case that is currently being prosecuted and a senior officer somewhere else in the public service under this centralised management that this Bill imposes says, "Give me the file dealing with such and such a case", your inability to respond in both cases is the same. There is an element of confidentiality here that applies whether you are in the DPP's Office and you are talking about a case that is being prosecuted there, or whether you are working in the Legal Aid Office and a case is being defended there. In both cases the officer can be involved in a case in which the Government is the respondent.
Mr Humphries: Or a Minister.
MR KAINE: Yes. There is no difference, in fact, between the positions of the staffers in those two organisations. If the Chief Minister can argue, as she has done, that the Legal Aid Commission ought to be left out of this, for valid reasons, then those reasons apply equally to employees of the Director of Public Prosecutions. They should be treated the same. For the Chief Minister to get up and say, "In the case of the Legal Aid Office there are these reasons why they should be excluded, but in the case of the Director of Public Prosecutions those reasons do not exist", is to deny the truth. The cases are the same.
I believe that the position of the Opposition is consistent and it is logical. The staffers of neither of these statutory offices should be subject to direction or instruction, except from the Minister through the chief executive. We believe that the positions should be identical. The Government's position is illogical and cannot be sustained. For that reason I urge members of the Assembly to reject this amendment and to look very closely at the slightly different amendment to be put forward by the Leader of the Opposition, which is consistent. Our proposed amendment recognises the similarity of the staffs in the two positions. It recognises that the Minister, if he or she is so disposed, can issue a directive to the two statutory offices, or either one of them, if there is such a serious situation that that is warranted; but it removes the possibility of undue interference in the business of either of those statutory offices through the staff that are engaged in the organisations.
Madam Speaker, I think that the logic is irrefutable. The facts are that the staff of either of these offices are in exactly the same position, and they should be dealt with in exactly the same fashion. In our view, the only way that the situation can be decently treated is for both offices to be excluded from this definition, and then the consequential amendments that flow from that can be put into effect in this Bill and in the Public Sector Management (Consequential and Transitional Provisions) Bill.
MR LAMONT (Minister for Urban Services, Minister for Housing and Community Services, Minister for Industrial Relations and Minister for Sport) (11.39): Madam Speaker, the Legal Aid Commission is covered by its own Act. It is proposed, for that reason, to treat the Legal Aid Commission as a distinct and discrete entity. Quite simply, that is the position which has the support of the majority of members of the Assembly. The proposal that the DPP's Office also be an autonomous instrumentality also has the support of the majority of the members of this Assembly. That, Mr Kaine, is
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