Page 4591 - Week 15 - Tuesday, 6 December 1994

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SCRUTINY OF BILLS AND SUBORDINATE LEGISLATION -

STANDING COMMITTEE

Report and Statement

MRS GRASSBY: Madam Speaker, I present report No. 19 of 1994 of the Standing Committee on Scrutiny of Bills and Subordinate Legislation. I ask for leave to make a brief statement.

Leave granted.

MRS GRASSBY: Report No. 19 of 1994 contains the committee's comments on six Bills and 14 pieces of subordinate legislation and seven Government responses. This is the last report that our committee will be presenting to this Assembly, and I would like to thank the other two members of the committee, Gary Humphries and Helen Szuty. It has been a pleasure to serve with them. I would also like to thank Professor Whalan, who has provided a great deal of guidance to us. Also, I thank Beth and Tom from the Secretariat, who have done a wonderful job. The nice thing is that Tom always comes up with a story. His story this morning was: What does Santa Claus call his elves? The answer is: Subordinate Clauses. I thought you would like that, Madam Speaker.

PUBLIC SECTOR - STANDING COMMITTEE

Report on Whistleblower Legislation

MR KAINE (8.04): I present report No. 1 of the Standing Committee on the Public Sector, entitled "Report on Whistleblower Legislation in the ACT", which includes a dissenting report, together with extracts from the minutes of proceedings. I move:

That the report be noted.

As I have indicated, Mr Berry has submitted a minority report on this matter. I would like to comment briefly on that report. I notice that Mr Berry has said that he has not changed his view from that which he adopted some months ago in relation to the select committee, on the basis that no additional information or evidence has been presented that would cause him to change his mind. Madam Speaker, I would like to draw attention to paragraph 1.8 of the report, which mentions the evidence that the committee looked at. Some of that information was not available at the time that the select committee examined this matter. It includes the South Australian Whistleblowers Protection Act 1993; the Queensland Whistleblowers Protection Bill 1994, which I note is still a Bill; the New South Wales Protected Disclosures Bill 1994; Senator Christabel Chamarette's private members Whistleblowers Protection Bill, which is currently before the Senate; and the report of the Senate Standing Committee on Public Interest Whistleblowing. Most of those documents were not available when the select committee looked at this matter some time ago.


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