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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (4 November) . . Page.. 3501 ..

MR HUMPHRIES: Until you rose to speak, you had not asked for legal advice. This Bill has been on the table since 25 September, six weeks ago, and you have not asked for legal advice before today. Not surprisingly, as the debate is just about to conclude, I do not have it with me. I am not even sure that the advice is in writing.

Mr Berry: You said in the speech that it could be resolved administratively.

MR HUMPHRIES: No, we did not say that. We said:

While this uncertainty may be capable of being remedied administratively, it is preferable to amend the Statutory Appointments Act ...

I am a bit confused about the Labor Party's position. We had a debate only a few months ago about some determinations of fees made under health legislation in which precisely the same issue arose, and there was doubt about whether the problem could be fixed retrospectively. In that case Mr Berry insisted that the problem be fixed by legislation, not administratively. In that case the Government proposed to fix the problem administratively and Mr Berry said, "No, no, no. It must be done by legislation". Now he says, "Why are you bringing legislation before this place? Go away and fix it administratively". It was partly because of Mr Berry's approach on that other issue that the Government brought this matter before the Assembly. This is a sign that the Labor Party is just opposing for opposing's sake. It is the sort of thing we have seen picked up time and time again. We are going to see lots more of it, I suspect, in the final four weeks of sitting of this term of the parliament.

I turn to the more sensible comments made by Mr Moore. Mr Moore agrees that we should validate, in effect, the appointments of JPs in the past; that we should allow JPs who have been appointed previously to have their appointments and the acts that they have performed validated by this legislation. But he raises the question that henceforth JP appointments should be referred to the appropriate committee - I assume that it would be Mr Osborne's Legal Affairs Committee - for approval.

Mr Speaker, I have indicated that the Government will not oppose the amendments. We are prepared to see how they work out. I simply inject a note of caution. Clearly, it was not envisaged by either this Government or the previous Government that JPs would be subject to the Act. Neither Mr Connolly nor I have ever taken a step before now to refer appointments of JPs to an Assembly committee. It was obviously the view, taken administratively probably but by the agents of the governments of the time, that JPs were not intended to be caught by the legislation. If we now say that JPs should be, we are expecting the names of those people who are performing jobs out in the community as servants of the community rather than of government or an agency of government to have their names put before the Assembly. I imagine most would not baulk at that development. Most would be content to have their names put before an Assembly committee. Some might even be flattered by that or feel more important because of it, but some might not. I am just a little wary about some people being unwilling to have their names put before a public process of scrutiny by a parliamentary committee before their names go forward, but perhaps that is not a significant problem. I really do not know, to be frank.

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