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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 11 Hansard (4 November) . . Page.. 3507 ..

MR WHITECROSS (continuing):

I think it amazing that the Minister now thinks that he has found a category of statutory appointees that would not like having their names referred to a committee, while all the other statutory appointments would want their names sent to a committee. If we are going to have a Statutory Appointments Act which provides for Assembly scrutiny of statutory appointments, then it has to be applied consistently. We have to accept the policy benefits of having names referred to committees. If that causes some discomfort to some people who are receiving statutory appointments, then we have to accept that that is the price we pay for the policy decision of this Assembly to have those statutory appointments referred to committees. The Government have chosen a path to go down for confirmation of appointments. As Mr Berry has said, it may or may not have been necessary, but the Government have chosen the path. Mr Moore's amendments ensure that protections are there in relation to the people who have already been appointed, apparently in error.

MR HUMPHRIES (Attorney-General) (11.25): At the risk of having to dispel what is already an obviously easily dispelled notion, I want to put a couple of things on the record. I have not backed away from the legislation one iota. I support this legislation, as I supported it in 1994. I have been consistent on that, unlike the Labor Party. When I pointed out that it was Mr Moore's Bill, I was responding to an interjection from Mr Whitecross, which he has not cared to repeat in this debate, that the Bill was my Bill.

Mr Whitecross: You supported the legislation. You cannot back away from it.

MR HUMPHRIES: I am not trying to. I support the legislation. It is great legislation and we support it all the way. We have always supported it, unlike you lot over there.

Mr Whitecross: Now you are trying to pedal away.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, can I be allowed to make some comments here?

MR SPEAKER: I do not know why you do not all go outside and have a talk about it among yourselves. Mr Humphries has the floor.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Whitecross interjected that it was my Bill. Mr Whitecross has since discovered, by going back and checking, that it is not my Bill. It was originally Mr Moore's Bill, but we of course fully support it.

Mr Berry: Except for JPs.

MR HUMPHRIES: Mr Speaker, I followed the same policy that the Labor Party followed. Again, consistency is a bit of a problem for the Labor Party. If you people believe that JPs should have been caught by the Statutory Appointments Act, why did you not refer any appointments of JPs while you were in office to - - -

Mr Whitecross: I did not appoint any.

MR HUMPHRIES: But your party did.

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