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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 2000 Week 6 Hansard (24 May) . . Page.. 1751 ..

MR SMYTH (continuing):

agency created at law. This is created for the Auditor-General at section 21 of the act. Your bill fails to grant the commissioner an agency to administer. The government's bill does that, Mr Speaker, and it does it in such a way that it also gives effect to the coroner's recommendation for a statutory authority.

Mr Speaker, the approach that the government has brought to the Assembly is simple and efficient. It fixes the problems that the government has encountered in implementing the act and it delivers to the Assembly the simple independent model that it explicitly sought in December last year. It also delivers on the coroner's recommendation for a statutory authority. I hope that Mr Berry now sees that after being briefed on these problems by my department.

The government has not brought this bill on as a political game; it is serious. It is about addressing serious deficiencies in Mr Berry's bill. He has now proposed further amendments following the government's briefing. So we have a bill from Mr Berry to which he raises amendments, to which he raises a second set of amendments. Mr Speaker, we are doing this quite simply so that the will of the Assembly can be implemented and the wishes of the coroner can be met.

Mr Speaker, I have some advice here. Today, Mr Berry circulated some amendments. They are amendments that he has put together after advice from my department. I have to congratulate the officers responsible on the way that they have been briefing members. This advice is from the Government Solicitor and, oddly enough, it gives us four options. There are some questions asked and it gives some options on implementation. It lists the options from the best down to the least satisfactory and, oddly enough, the advice from the Government Solicitor is that the government's option is the best option. It is quite curious, Mr Speaker, that the option that Mr Berry puts forward is rated as the least effective.

Mr Berry's bill is ad hoc at best. Mr Berry, either for ego or from ignorance, refuses to admit that there are flaws in his bill, even though we have confirmation that there are flaws from the fact that already he has had to bring forward two sets of amendments. Mr Speaker, the wishes of the coroner are still not met in Mr Berry's amendments, although I do concede that his amendments will make his bill somewhat more effective. It is not the best model. It does not meet what the coroner suggested. I do not believe that it meets what the Assembly wanted put in place in the first instance. Mr Speaker, I table the Government Solicitor's advice, for the information of members.

It is important that we get this matter right because on 23 June this function will start. I believe that the options that Mr Berry brings forward are still inadequate. They really do not give effect to what the Assembly wanted. They certainly do not meet what the coroner saw as an overriding need to put in place an independent statutory body. We can actually do that now. We can do it, and it is based on a model already used, for instance, for the Commissioner for Housing. The corporation sole gives effect to what the Assembly wanted. The government's bill should be supported. Mr Berry's amendments will only leave us with a second-rate commissioner.

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